Lafayette Square

Area schools and literacy programs use volunteers to help children or adults improve reading skills. Among those in need of volunteers are:Lafayette Square Community Center, 1510 W. Lafayette Ave., Baltimore, for an after-school program targeting elementary and middle schoolers, ages 6 to 14. Volunteers are needed from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays for homework assistance, computer lab, and tutoring in areas including language arts, reading comprehension and...

Area schools and literacy programs seek volunteers to help children and adults improve reading skills and to assist in related projects.Among them are:Thomas Johnson Elementary School, 100 E. Heath St., in South Baltimore, to work with children on reading during the school day, and in an after-school Reading Club tutoring program. Training will be provided. Hours are 7: 45 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school day, and 3: 15 p.m. to 4: 15 p.m. after school. Contact: Maria Zozuliak, reading teacher, 410-396- 1575.

Gladys Ann Sims, a retired educator, died of pneumonia Nov. 1 at the Mariner Health of Catonsville. The former Walbrook resident was 92. Born in Baltimore and raised on Druid Hill Avenue, she was a 1927 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and earned a history degree from Howard University in 1931. She also studied at New York University. In 1938, she married Cicero Hill Sims, a contractor, who died in 1957. Mrs. Sims taught English and other subjects at Douglass High School, the old Harvey Johnson Junior High at Hill and Sharp streets and the old Jane Addams School at Calvert and 23rd streets before her retirement about 25 years ago. She traveled widely.

Howard D. Rawlings, a Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund claims supervisor, died of cancer Friday at Stella Maris Hospice at Mercy Medical Center. The Harlem Park resident was 67. Born in Baltimore and raised on Arlington Avenue near Lafayette Square, he was a 1954 graduate of Douglass High School, where he played basketball. After serving two years in the Army, he earned a political science degree from what is now Morgan State University. He did graduate studies in urban planning at Morgan.

WASHINGTON -- If you are wondering how those personnel files went from the FBI to the White House, I can tell you. I carried them there."I don't know. Whoever reads them for the administration."Beware of scandal"We don't have anyone with that title. Maybe it's someone in the Social Office. They might use them to check on who not to invite to the White House dinners.""Well, why don't you just take them and I'll be on my way.""I am not authorized to accept FBI files. It could be a scandal.""How could it be a scandal?

A coalition of Baltimore community groups has filed suit against Boisclair Advertising Inc. seeking the removal of the firm's billboards from residential areas.Billboard ads for liquor and cigarettes in the inner city "send a very negative message . . . to our young people," one of the plaintiffs, Leslie Howard, said yesterday. "A message of death and destruction."Filed Oct. 11 in Baltimore Circuit Court, the suit seeks the removal of Boisclair's 900 mini-billboards in residential areas, an injunction preventing any additional ones, and $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Veronica Roselle Morton, a retired city housing department aide, died Thursday of pancreatic cancer at her Northwood home. She was 59. Before her retirement this year, she was a senior administrative assistant for the city's Section 8 housing program. She had been a municipal employee since 1978. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Hoes Heights neighborhood, she was a 1961 graduate of Eastern High School, where she played on the softball and basketball teams. She later earned an associate's degree in business from Baltimore City Community College.

Barbara Ann Tarver, who worked in Baltimore schools as a teacher and assistant principal for more than three decades, died Aug. 22 from injuries sustained in a two-car crash early that morning on Interstate 70. She was 61. Ms. Tarver was born, raised and educated in Baltimore. She graduated from Western High School in 1966 and earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from what is now Coppin State University, where she joined the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc. in 1970. A few years later, she received a master's degree from the same school, remembers friend Ann Ezell.