Longfellow Elementary School

POLICE LOG* Harper's Choice: 5400 block of Harpers Farm Road: Someone used a concrete block to break the drive-through window at the McDonald's restaurant at the Harper's Choice Village Center Sunday, police said.* Wilde Lake: 5400 block of Hesperus Drive: Four boys were arrested on charges of destruction of property Saturday night after police responding to a noise complaint found them in Longfellow Elementary School. The suspects had apparently entered the school through the roof, police said.

In a Baltimore recording studio last weekend, about a dozen Longfellow Elementary School children stood in front of microphones and sang a list of professions - lawyer, artist, teacher, scientist, writer and actor - to which they aspire. Those lyrics are at the end of This Is Who We Are, a song written to promote the Black Saga Competition, an annual statewide event testing students' knowledge of African-American history. The song carries the theme that "the road we're traveling on has been paved by people who have done great things before us and allowed us to move to the future," said Chance Glenn, who wrote it. He also is the founder and lead songwriter of Morningbird Music, an independent music publishing company in the Baltimore-Washington area that is releasing the single.

POLICE LOG* Town Center: 10300 block of Little Patuxent Parkway: A burgundy 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass with Maryland tags YZG206 was stolen from the Columbia Mall parking lot Tuesday.* Wilde Lake: 10400 block of Twin Rivers Road: Someone broke into the Anthony Richard Barber Shop Thursday, but nothing was taken, police said.* Harper's Choice: 5400 block of Harper's Farm Road: Someone smashed the window of Revelations Hair Salon just after midnight Thursday and took a cash register. The register was found later outside Longfellow Elementary School.

CHILDREN AT Longfellow Elementary School decided last month to forgo the ice cream, popcorn, cookies and other tempting snacks offered in the cafeteria - and instead donated their snack money to the Alexandria Firefighters' Tech Rescue Team, Station 206. This morning, representatives from the rescue team will visit the school to accept the donation and participate in a ceremony honoring their work at the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks. "Longfellow's mascot is the eagle," said Nancy Harper, the school's counselor.

Nine Howard County organizations and schools recently have been awarded a total of $81,500 from the United Way of Central Maryland.The recipients are:Careerscope Inc., which received $16,000.Children of Separation and Divorce Center Inc., $16,000.Mediation and Conflict Resolution Center, $16,000.Howard County Sexual Assault Center Inc., $10,000.Running Brook Elementary School, $7,500.Churches Concerned for the Homeless, $6,000.Elkridge Landing Middle School, $5,000.Longfellow Elementary School, $2,500.

It stands 4 feet tall, is built of 80 triangles and 12 pentagons, and is covered with mathematical equations, definitions and questions.And according to the students at Longfellow Elementary School who built it, the strange geometric form is the world's largest "snub icosidodecahedron," the mathematical term for a many-faced structure made of pentagons and triangles that looks something like a soccer ball.Fourth- and fifth-grade students in the Columbia school's gifted and talented math program made the shape yesterday, guided by Dr. S. Brent Morris, a mathematician at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, and his assistant, Jamie Met, a student at Virginia Tech.

Barbara H. Garnes talked about becoming a teacher from the time she was in junior high school, telling friends and family she could touch the future by making a difference in children's lives.The former Phelps Luck Elementary School principal died Tuesday of bone cancer after more than two decades as an educator in Howard County and Baltimore. She was 50.Those who worked with Ms. Garnes remembered her as an energetic person committed to the children who attended her school, someone who worked evenings and weekends on school matters.

Sixth-grade teacher at Mayfield Woods will attend institute Timothy Pruett, a sixth-grade teacher at Mayfield Woods Middle School in Elkridge, was selected to attend the Key Issues Institute in Silverthorne, Colo. The weeklong session, sponsored through a grant from Lockheed Martin, provides teachers with creative strategies for instruction on environmental issues. The training will enhance the hands-on science experience for Pruett's pupils. The institute is part of Keystone Science School, a nonprofit residential field science school.

Shane Pendergrass is seeking to save a school addition, change state law and make sure that Howard County's new growth ordinance is being enforced.Ms. Pendergrass, the County Council chairwoman, isn't happy that the school board has announced it will put off a $1.6 million addition to the Bollman Bridge Elementary School in her district. She also isn't happy with a state law that prevents the county from sharing excise tax revenues with the school board to help pay for new school construction.

Members of the Harper's Choice community want to replace what many feel is dilapidated, and unsafe, playground equipment at Longfellow Elementary School.The school playground is heavily used by Longfellow students, children in before- and after-school programs, neighborhood children and by children attending summer camps.Because the Howard County Board of Education hasn't allocated money for new playground equipment, the project has been taken on by the Longfellow PTA and concerned members of the Harper's Choice community.

Sixth-grade teacher at Mayfield Woods will attend institute Timothy Pruett, a sixth-grade teacher at Mayfield Woods Middle School in Elkridge, was selected to attend the Key Issues Institute in Silverthorne, Colo. The weeklong session, sponsored through a grant from Lockheed Martin, provides teachers with creative strategies for instruction on environmental issues. The training will enhance the hands-on science experience for Pruett's pupils. The institute is part of Keystone Science School, a nonprofit residential field science school.

STUDENTS ANSWERED math questions, raced to consume snacks (no hands allowed) and heard a teacher's voice changed into a chipmunk's.It was all part of the Radio Zone School Tour '97 at Longfellow Elementary School last week.Kenny Curtis, host of "The Breakfast Bunch," Radio Zone's locally produced live morning show, visited the school Nov. 17.Accompanying him were co-host Thea Carey and promotions coordinator Terri Saylor.They taped a one-hour segment that was broadcast on the children's station the next morning.

KAREN ARNOLD'S maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Sweden in the early 1900s.Nearly a century later, the Clary's Forest resident has returned to their homeland.Arnold, a poet with a doctorate in English, is teaching a course in modern American poetry this fall at the University of Lund.She went over in July to visit family. She plans to return home in December.While in Sweden, Arnold will work on translations of 19th-century Swedish women's diaries, a project she began on an earlier visit.

Nine Howard County organizations and schools recently have been awarded a total of $81,500 from the United Way of Central Maryland.The recipients are:Careerscope Inc., which received $16,000.Children of Separation and Divorce Center Inc., $16,000.Mediation and Conflict Resolution Center, $16,000.Howard County Sexual Assault Center Inc., $10,000.Running Brook Elementary School, $7,500.Churches Concerned for the Homeless, $6,000.Elkridge Landing Middle School, $5,000.Longfellow Elementary School, $2,500.

A COMPACT DISC of electronic music by student composers was among the attractions last week at Wilde Lake Middle School's enrichment fair, a showcase of creativity that included interactive computer software on world cultures and a plan for a skateboard and in-line skate park in Columbia.The CD "Sounds from the Wilde" included works such as "Crazy Blues in C," by Mark Dubac, "Variation on a Western Theme," by Sarah Risch and Bryanna Herring, and "Trance Jupiter," by Sam Diener.Mike Bevill, Glenn Centers, Gino D'Giovanni, Jason Downs, Wayne Hamlin, Nick Hanewinkle, Jacob Patterson and Michael Washington are the other composers whose work appears on the disc.

THE DECISION was made months ago to dedicate Sunday's concert of the Wilde Lake Interfaith Choir and Orchestra to James W. Rouse, Columbia's founder and an unswerving supporter of the interfaith concept.When Mr. Rouse died April 9, the dedication became all the more meaningful."Glorious, Glorias" is the title of the group's fifth annual spring concert, which begins at 7: 30 p.m. at the Interfaith Center on Twin Rivers Road in Wilde Lake.The 60-voice choir and orchestra will perform works by Bach, Mozart and contemporary composers in addition to the featured piece, Antonio Vivaldi's "Gloria."

In a Baltimore recording studio last weekend, about a dozen Longfellow Elementary School children stood in front of microphones and sang a list of professions - lawyer, artist, teacher, scientist, writer and actor - to which they aspire. Those lyrics are at the end of This Is Who We Are, a song written to promote the Black Saga Competition, an annual statewide event testing students' knowledge of African-American history. The song carries the theme that "the road we're traveling on has been paved by people who have done great things before us and allowed us to move to the future," said Chance Glenn, who wrote it. He also is the founder and lead songwriter of Morningbird Music, an independent music publishing company in the Baltimore-Washington area that is releasing the single.

A COMPACT DISC of electronic music by student composers was among the attractions last week at Wilde Lake Middle School's enrichment fair, a showcase of creativity that included interactive computer software on world cultures and a plan for a skateboard and in-line skate park in Columbia.The CD "Sounds from the Wilde" included works such as "Crazy Blues in C," by Mark Dubac, "Variation on a Western Theme," by Sarah Risch and Bryanna Herring, and "Trance Jupiter," by Sam Diener.Mike Bevill, Glenn Centers, Gino D'Giovanni, Jason Downs, Wayne Hamlin, Nick Hanewinkle, Jacob Patterson and Michael Washington are the other composers whose work appears on the disc.

It's deja vu all over again for Tracy Adler, director of Wilde Lake High School at River Hill's production of the musical "SMILE!" about the 1984 Young American Miss California Pageant.Ms. Adler was a contestant in the same pageant in the same year. As Miss Merced County, she competed for the California state crown in 1984.Connie Sue Whipple, the fictional Miss Merced County, is played in the Wilde Lake production by Jamequa Redmond."SMILE!" will be presented at 8 p.m. Nov. 16, 17 and 18. Tickets are $6 and can be purchased before each performance at the box office.

A support group run by a counselor at Columbia's Longfellow Elementary School helped Milton Long's 8-year-old son deal with his anger after Mr. Long and his wife divorced in August."