Hoffberger

Mildred G. Hoffberger, a longtime volunteer for the American Red Cross and Sinai Hospital, died Friday of pneumonia at her home at Harbor Court Towers. She was 93.Private services for Mrs. Hoffberger were held Sunday at the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation's Hoffberger Chapel.During World War II, she drove delivery trucks and ambulances in Baltimore for the American Red Cross and continued as a volunteer for the organization for 15 years.She is survived by three sons, C. Bertram Hoffberger of Aldie, Va.; LeRoy E. Hoffberger of Baltimore, and Stanley A. Hoffberger of Houston; a sister, Harriet Barber of Baltimore; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Their jobs at the old National Brewery in Highlandtown were the best they would ever hold. Decades after the "Land of Pleasant Living" ceased brewing golden suds on the Patapsco's banks, salesmen, accountants, promoters and engineers gathered at a Parkville bar and restaurant, swapped stories and savored the malt and hops now produced by Miller Brewing Co. Bill Costello, who once worked as National's advertising director, put it this way: "When you...

I FIND MYSELF going to too doggone many of these," Chuck Thompson said the other day. He meant the funerals of those once anticipated to live forever. He sat in the big sanctuary at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, and he meant Cal Ripken Sr., thought to be too tough to give in to death, and he meant Mark Belanger, born to turn the treacherous ground ball into the inning-ending double play forever, and now it was Jerry Hoffberger who had gotten away.Thompson, the voice of the Orioles for four decades, the voice of the Colts for three decades, was Hoffberger's employee for much of that time because it was Hoffberger's beer, National Boh, that sponsored so many of the broadcasts."

When the American Visionary Art Museum opened in 1995, founder and director Rebecca Hoffberger sought to provide a new kind of institution for Baltimore and beyond. It was not meant to be a science center that focused solely on technological achievements or a gallery that promoted art with a capital A. The goal was to create a place that explored the connections between art and science and philosophy (and social responsibility) - and to see what happens from there. An exhibit that opens this weekend shows how far the museum has come in the past 13 years.

Richard Hoffberger was elected last night to his second consecutive three-year term as president of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, an organization that represents about 3,000 horse owners and trainers."

You can't help feeling a little sorry for Jerry Hoffberger when you hear the numbers being tossed around as the likely sale price of the Orioles.Already $148.1 million -- the highest ever for a major-league baseball team -- is being offered.With several groups bidding in an auction-like procedure in a New York bankruptcy court, there's no telling how high the price will go.Which brings us to Jerry Hoffberger, the best owner the Orioles have ever had.Hoffberger ran a good show here from 1966 to 1979.

Charles H. Hoffberger, a businessman and philanthropist who was a member of a well-known Baltimore family, died of a stroke yesterday at his Green Spring Valley home. He would have been 85 today.Mr. Hoffberger was a director of the Baltimore Orioles and of the National Brewing Co. while his cousin, Jerold C. Hoffberger, was their chairman."He was a traditional family person," said Jerold Hoffberger. "He felt his family -- not only his wife and daughter and grandchildren and great-grandson -- but cousins and in-laws were all part of a very small world in which he lived.

WOODBINE -- Jerry Hoffberger formally left the horse breeding business yesterday when his 120-acre Sunset Hill thoroughbred farm was auctioned off at a public sale.The new owner, who is from Maryland, did not want his name disclosed. He owns show and draft horses, and he plans to stand a Clydesdale stallion named Spike and a Percheron stallion named Adam at the farm that was once home to such well-known thoroughbred sires as Run The Gantlet and Northern Jove.Hoffberger, former owner of the Orioles, bought the farm in western Howard County approximately 12 years ago. He had almost instant success there with Run The Gantlet, a stallion he imported from Ireland after one of the horse's sons, Providential II, and a daughter, April Run, finished 1-2 in the 1981 Budweiser International.

Seeing the new downtown baseball park in operation brings elation to Bill Boucher, who turns back the pages to another time frame, when Baltimore had two major-league sports franchises and the team owners, Jerry Hoffberger and Carroll Rosenbloom, were talking to each other -- before their friendship became past-tense.How the scenario began: It was 1970 and Hoffberger and Rosenbloom met with Boucher, then executive director of the Greater Baltimore Committee, about building an all-purpose stadium at the Camden Railroad Yards . . . on the same property selected almost two decades later for the location of a baseball-only facility.

THE ORIOLES HALL of Fame was founded in 1977 by the Orioles Advocates and the Baltimore Orioles. Since then, more than two dozen Orioles managers, coaches and players have been installed, all of whom were recognized for their contributions to the ballclub and the community.And this year's annual luncheon was certainly no exception, with the induction of 1996 honorees: Jerry Hoffberger, one of the Orioles most popular owners; Billy Hunter, former O's player and coach; and Cal Ripken Sr., former Orioles player, scout and manager.

More than a year has passed since Baltimoreans last saw a high-rise building near downtown demolished the old-fashioned way, with a 4-ton wrecking ball rather than explosives. It has been even longer since a high-profile demolition drew no opposition from local preservationists or community activists. That's the case with a 1928 cold food storage warehouse that's being razed this month to make way for an expansion of Maryland's correctional facilities in East Baltimore. For several weeks now, the windowless brick building at Monument and Graves streets has been slowly disappearing, in sight of thousands driving by on the nearby Jones Falls Expressway.

Thwarted last year by community opposition and the city zoning board from opening a multipurpose services center across the street from its East Baltimore sanctuary, Southern Baptist Church is ready to try again at a new location down the street - this time with the help of a powerful state senator who is also a member of its congregation. State Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, president pro tem of the General Assembly's upper chamber and a member of the church for more than three decades, is the sponsor of a state bond bill to help Southern Baptist create the Mary Harvin Transformation Center, which would provide counseling to AIDS patients and their families as well as other services.

Do you fault the Orioles for not making a trade Monday? Trading one of the top hitters in the game like Tejada for what was offered would have been ridiculous. Trading disgruntled Javy Lopez for a bag of baseballs and a player to be named later would have been brilliant. Jim Kirby Columbia No fault for not acquiring Oswalt, who would be gone by the 2008 season. Fault lies in the O's weak rookie drafts. Fault the O's farm system for the team's shallow assets to trade. Bill Piccirilli Lutherville No. 1 fault Jerry Hoffberger, Frank Cashen and Hank Peters for not leaving any notes behind on how to upgrade the team through trades.

A siren in a red dress, poet Anne Sexton strode to the stage at Goucher College on Oct. 1, 1974, and assembled her usual props - a glass of water, a sheaf of papers, a pack of cigarettes. Over the next 90 minutes, she delivered a bracing, spirited performance that ended with a prolonged standing ovation. Two days later, she flew home to Massachusetts. She taught a poetry class at Boston University. She had lunch with an old friend. Then, sometime on the afternoon of Oct. 4, she poured herself a glass of vodka, walked into her garage and shut the door.

Every afternoon, a small miracle occurs at the American Visionary Art Museum. That's what director Rebecca Hoffberger told the VIPs who arrived early enough for a whirlwind tour of AVAM's newest exhibit, Race, Class, Gender Do Not Equal Character, before the museum's black-tie 10th-anniversary gala got started Saturday night. On one wall hung dozens of tiny quilts, each created by black South African women in the days after apartheid ended. Across the room was a wire-and-mirror portrait of Nelson Mandela, who helped bring that horror to an end. Every day about 2:30, Hoffberger said, sunlight streaming through a window falls on Mandela's face and reflects directly onto the tapestries.

A visitor to Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum, who has been rooted in front of a painting for several minutes, turns and comments excitedly to a stranger about how much she likes the work. Immediately the pair becomes engaged in animated conversation, smiling widely, nodding, gesturing toward the artwork. Before parting, the two women hug. One of them, it turns out, is Rebecca Hoffberger, the museum's founding director. At most museums, visitors rarely bump into top staff members, much less exchange observations and warm hugs with the chief administrator.

WOODBINE -- Jerry Hoffberger formally left the horse breeding business yesterday when his 120-acre Sunset Hill thoroughbred farm was auctioned off at a public sale.The new owner, who is from Maryland, did not want his name disclosed. He owns show and draft horses, and he plans to stand a Clydesdale stallion named Spike and a Percheron stallion named Adam at the farm that was once home to such well-known thoroughbred sires as Run The Gantlet and Northern Jove.Hoffberger, former owner of the Baltimore Orioles, bought the farm in western Howard County approximately 12 years ago. He had almost instant success there with Run The Gantlet, a stallion he imported from Ireland after one of the horse's sons, Providential II, and a daughter, April Run, finished 1-2 in the 1981 Budweiser International.

"The eagle has landed." Those were the words of Rebecca Hoffberger yesterday after workers finished installing the latest permanent exhibition at her American Visionary Art Museum on Key Highway: a 37-foot-tall, 2-ton bird made of steel and scrap iron she has dubbed "The Phoenix." If she sounded as much elated astronaut as museum director, maybe that's because the big bird -- the final piece in a tableau of oversized sculptures in the museum's courtyard -- crystallizes the mission of the institution she founded a little more than 10 years ago. "We wanted a magnificent work just like this out front, as part of our ongoing love story with the people of Baltimore," she said.

On Wednesday, December 7, 2005, MELVIN MARGOLIS, loving husband of the late Betty Margolis (nee Wolf); beloved father of Dr. Murray Margolis of Laguna Beach, CA, Gail Hoffberger Margolis of Baltimore, MD and Joel Margolis of Baltimore, MD; devoted father-in-law of Bonnie B. Margolis, Dr. Allen Judman and Bonnie D. Margolis; devoted brother of Sylvia Krieger of Baltimore, MD and the late Michael Margolis; loving grandfather of Jill and Kevin Kamenetz, Kelley...