Headmistress

Evelyn Flory, a teacher and administrator for more than 30 years, says she has found a home."I look at this as the last school I will ever serve," Dr. Flory said yesterday, just before her installation ceremony as the fifth headmistress of St. Paul's School for Girls in Brooklandville.Dr. Flory, who has taught English in private secondary schools and in New York state's public university system, replaces Lila Lohr, headmistress for nine years, who left to head Princeton Day School in Princeton, N.J."

The entire student body turned out to witness the swearing in of Evelyn Flory as the fifth headmistress of the St. Paul's School for Girls. She replaces the delightful Lila Lohr, who left to head New Jersey's Princeton Day School.Included in the service was a performance by the Saints, the school's elite music group, led by teacher Margie Farmer. They sang a lovely rendition of "Choose Something Like a Star,"written by contemporary choral composer Randall Thompson.After the performance, guests gathered in the school's Ward Center for a reception.

Nearly every school day, headmistress Barbara Landis Chase leaves her office to walk briskly around the rolling hills of Bryn Mawr School. On this cloudy afternoon, she commiserates with fourth-graders frustrated by the complexities of computers, cheers on the lacrosse team goalie and pokes her head into a drama class.There, a student stands before her peers, her nose high in the air and her fist clenched against her hip. "I'm your worst nightmare," she says like some Cruella De Vil in sneakers, "your new headmistress."

In 1977, Judith Banker-Barrett answered a small newspaper ad for the headmistress position at the Blue Bird School. With only five years' teaching experience, she got the job running the tiny, 40-pupil school in a rambling house on Berwick Road in Ruxton."

When Evelyn Flory helps to ceremonially set the 2001 date stone at the front of the new main building of St. Paul's School for Girls today, she will be fulfilling one of her last major duties as headmistress. Flory is retiring June 30 after seven years as head of the girls school in Brooklandville and after leading the school through two building projects, including a major expansion and renovation. Today's dedication signals the end of both projects, which cost more than $16 million and took more than four years to complete.

You learn the most surprising things from obituaries sometimes, and when I read the one about Roald Dahl, the celebrated children's author who died Friday at the age of 74, my mouth dropped open.Who would believe this man -- whose books describe so scathingly the warts and foibles and inexplicable cruelty of adults -- also had written the screenplay for the cheerful, optimistic, downright uplifting movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?"The Roald Dahl I knew didn't have Dick Van Dyke in his vocabulary.

Rosalind R. Levering, who was the first headmistress of the St. Paul's School for Girls in Brooklandville, died Friday of a heart attack in Camden, Maine, after being injured in an automobile accident a week earlier.She was 84 and lived in the Ambassador Apartments in the winter and in Thomaston, Maine, in the summer.Services for Mrs. Levering were being held today at University Baptist Church, North Charles Street and Greenway.In 1966 when Mrs. Levering retired as headmistress, William Reed, then chairman of the board, said the school would always be grateful because she established "the unique quality of the school and one we hope it will never lose."

William A. Hoffman of Severn Park, was recognized by Harbor HospitalCenter for his insight in founding the "Race for the Gull" regatta in 1985 and indeveloping a lasting partnership between the hospital, the Magothy River Sailing Association and the Rock Creek Racing Association.The sailing regatta and post-party celebration have become an annual fund-raising event for Harbor Hospital Center. This year's event on July 13 attracted more than 500 party-goers and more than $8,000 was raised for the hospital's Pediatics Unit.

In Baltimore County Mount de Sales Academy names new headmistress CATONSVILLE - Mount de Sales Academy has a new headmistress, Sister Mary Reginald. A native of Bedford, England, Sister Mary grew up in Oak Ridge, Tenn. She received a bachelor's degree from Siena College in Memphis, Tenn., and master's degrees from Xavier University in Cincinnati and the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. A Dominican nun for more than three decades, she has been a principal of schools in Tennessee, Ohio and Virginia and was president of Aquinas College in Nashville, Tenn.

Ruxton Country School, which has educated children at two Baltimore locations for almost 80 years, has announced plans to relocate to a single campus in Baltimore County.The school is scheduled to open in the fall of 1992 on a 30-acre site at 11202 Garrison Forest Road in Owings Mills.Ruxton currently operates its lower school at 1402 Berwick Road and its middle school at 6200 N. Charles St.Judith Banker-Barrett, the school's headmistress, said growth and enhanced facilities are the main reasons for the move.