Gathering

Several dozen people turned out Tuesday evening in Towson to share the final stop on the 2012 general election. "Election 2012: Returns After Dark," was held at the Towson Library, and featured a Johns Hopkins professor providing instant insight into day's election results. "It's just fun to follow,” said Owings Mills resident Dan Wentland. “It has an impact on us for the next four years.” Wentland, a Towson University alumnus, said he found the event on the county library system website and was enjoying the discourse between the attendees, all of whom he believes have a vested interest in the election.

As old photographs of local jazz musicians flashed on a screen, those gathered in the Pennsylvania Avenue branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Druid Heights on Monday night shouted out names or furrowed their brows, racking their memories for old acquaintances and friends. About 50 people gathered for local historian Thomas Saunders' program "Revisiting Pennsylvania Avenue: A Trip Down Memory Lane" at the library branch and long-standing community landmark, which just completed a three-month renovation.

A Baltimore County judge allowed the release Wednesday of the names of people who signed petitions to challenge the county's zoning maps, saying the information is "clearly a public record. " In the latest turn in a battle between developers, Circuit Judge Kathleen Cox ruled that the county board of elections should make the documents public. Referendum opponents asked for the names because they want to lay the framework for a legal challenge to the petition filings. Several development firms are funding the referendum drive while others whose projects depend on the new zoning are fighting the effort.

On Oct. 23, a purse was the ticket to a good time at Power of the Purse, an event hosted in Towson by the Baltimore County Commission for Women 's and the nonprofit Samaritan Women. The night's goal was to raise awareness — and ultimately money through the resale of donated purses — to fight human trafficking, an issue that commission members say has shown increasing concern in Baltimore County, and Maryland overall. Outside 7 West Bistro Grille, people were asked to drop off new or gently used purses.

The eve of the next General Assembly session will arrive before authorities complete an investigation into Del. Don Dwyer, who admitted he was drunk while piloting a speed boat in a collision that seriously injured six people this past summer. Authorities said Tuesday that witness interviews and toxicology screens are still incomplete as investigators probe the two-vessel crash that sent four children, Dwyer and another adult to the hospital after an Aug. 22 accident on the Magothy River.

After Ernestine Martin Wyatt helped stage a walkout decades ago over a lack of African-American history lessons at her high school, a teacher pulled her aside to ask about Wyatt's family ties to Harriet Tubman. The Maryland-born slave and famed conductor of the Underground Railroad left a personal legacy in her family, Wyatt, a distant niece of the abolitionist, said Saturday: a succession of strong women. And it's that more personal side of Tubman that Wyatt hopes America comes to know during the forthcoming centennial of her death.

Residents and city leaders who gathered Thursday night in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood where a 51-year-old scientist was recently gunned down spoke passionately about taking the streets back from criminals intent on intimidation. Gathered in the Belair-Edison neighborhood to take a "solidarity walk" after the killing Monday night of Peter Marvit, they spoke of sticking together to confront crime throughout the city. "We know we cannot let the cowards win, not in this neighborhood, not in any neighborhood in this city," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, telling the 100 or so residents in attendance that they "deserve to live in safe neighborhoods.

Hundreds of Perry Hall High School parents and students packed into the auditorium one week after the first day of school was marred by gunfire, demanding answers about what unfolded in the cafeteria and posing questions about student safety. From metal detectors to tighter student discipline policies and more sophisticated communication systems, dozens of parents called for action Tuesday night in the wake of the Aug. 27 shooting that left Daniel Borowy, 17, a special needs student, in critical condition.

A mourner showed up decked out in full Elvis splendor. A beer truck emblazoned with the Mr. Boh logo led the funeral procession. And more than 2,000 people packed the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen — it was standing-room-only in the rear vestibule and the transepts — to mourn Nacho Mama's owner Patrick "Scunny" McCusker and, as one longtime friend said, to put the "fun in funeral. " "This is what Scunny would have wanted — an audience," said Sean Leahy, who spoke Wednesday at the Mass for the Canton restaurateur hailed for his camaraderie, his philanthropy and his drive to revitalize the neighborhood.

Elmer Hall grew up in a small town with tree-lined streets, stores, churches and schools - and the largest steel mill in the world, which ran it all. Now that company town exists only in photographs and memories. Forty years ago, the then-owner of the Sparrows Point complex in Baltimore County began demolishing bungalows, rowhouses and everything else to make way for a massive blast furnace that still stands today. On Saturday, Hall and hundreds of other former residents gathered near the mill to see each other again - and to remember when work and life were intimately intertwined.