Madd

Jim Rouse fund elects officers, board members The Jim Rouse Entrepreneurial Fund, a not-for-profit private fund, has elected officers for 2002-2003 and five new members to its board of directors. The fund provides risk-oriented financing up to $100,000 and other support services to small and emerging businesses and helps create jobs in Howard County. Elected as officers are Robert I. Jeffrey of Legg Mason, president; Antonio P. Salazar, Provident Bank of Maryland, first vice president; Diane Battle, Allfirst Bank, second vice president; Edward L. Waddell, Cardoni, Waddell LLC, treasurer; Alice T. Iskra, Patuxent Publishing Co., secretary; and Anthony J. Tangires, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., past president.

One fact demonstrated time and again in our country's history is our resiliency after tragic events. We eventually recover and get back to "business as usual." Unfortunately, "business as usual" for many includes drunken driving, a crime that results in more than 16,000 deaths and 600,000 injuries annually. While international events grab current headlines, it is critical not to forget that every drunken driving death or injury is 100 percent preventable. This issue is all the more important to America's families as we head into the holiday season, which brings increased travel and a dangerous drunken-driving period.

Would you like a free Big Mac at McDonald's?How about a free carwash at the Campus Hills Texaco station near Bel Air? Or a free workout at Chesapeake Fitness Center in Aberdeen?To get these goodies and more, just serve as a designated driver when you and your buddies go out on the town.The giveaways are part of a new program by the Harford Mothers Against Drunk Driving group to encourage people to serve as designated drivers and prevent alcohol-related traffic accidents.Eleven people were killed in such accidents in Harford last year, according to police statistics.

MADD seeks donations for annual yard saleThe Howard County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving needs usable items for its annual yard sale in September on the Center for Insurance parking lot, near Route 40 at Centennial Lane in Ellicott City.Call the MADD office at 465-5757 to leave name and phone number so arrangements can be made to drop off items.POLICE LOG* Ellicott City: 8700 block of Town and Country Blvd.: A television set, jewelry, videocassette recorder and video game equipment were stolen from a residence between 7:30 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. Friday.

If you were to watch Margaret Wason rambling through the County Courthouse, you'd easily mistake her for a well-known lawyer.As Wasonwalks the courthouse corridor, she chats with clerks, consults with prosecutors and sometimes directs defendants, victims and jurors to courtrooms.But the 46-year-old Bel Air resident is no lawyer. Just a woman very dedicated to a cause: getting and keeping drunken drivers off thecounty's roads.For nearly two years, Wason has been volunteeringtime to monitor cases involving drunken drivers in the county courtsfor a local Mothers Against Drunk Driving group.

In her office, Bonnie Cook, head of Howard County's Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter, keeps a grim reminder of what happens when people drink and drive."

It might not look that way now, but MADD and its allies won a battle in the war against drunken driving during the General Assembly session that ended a week ago. The bill that passed in Annapolis will increase the number of drunken drivers who are compelled to go on an ignition interlock program, where they must mount a device in their vehicles that won't let them start the engine unless their breath is free of any significant amount of alcohol....

They have heard about "designated drivers." They've been pressed to "just say no." They have seen the "Don't Drink and Drive" signs dozens of times.As teen-agers have grown weary of all the famous anti-alcohol slogans, it's become tougher for educators to reach them.In part, the campaigners against drinking and driving are a victim of their own success: Since the founding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, in 1980 -- and the designated driver campaign that was started by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and picked up by Hollywood -- the number of 15- to 20-year-olds killed in alcohol-related crashes has dropped by about 60 percent.

Appointing the School BoardBecause of my commitment to public education which allows for the free exchange of ideas, I have alerted the governor's legislative office to my concerns about HBO 1617. This bill establishes the permanent nominating caucus as the only channel for appointment to the Harford County Board of Education or the Community College Board of Trustees.What started as a reform coalition to open up the governor-appoints, senator-approves process could become the medium of the long-active radical right to hang up the appointment process interminably.

A moose head, some mole traps, and a 40-year-old console TV: these are some of the items Mothers Against Drunk Driving collected and sold in last year's yard sale, says MADD coordinator Nancy Hoffman. The moose head was sold at 7 a.m. before the yard sale opened.MADD is planning a repeat performance for September and is starting to accumulate items to sell. So when you are in your spring cleaning mood, don't throw those still-serviceable treasures away. Call MADD at (410) 465-5757 for information on delivery times or pickup for large items.