Mail Carrier

A letter carrier was shot and critically wounded yesterday while delivering mail in West Baltimore, city police said.U.S. Postal Service officials said it was the first known shooting of a Baltimore mail carrier.Detectives said they had few leads and scant information about the shooting of Kevin K. Taylor, 35, who was found bent over in the 300 block of Edsdale Road in severe pain about 11:25 a.m.A passer-by saw Mr. Taylor and called an ambulance. Mr. Taylor complained of pain in his back and stomach but was unaware that he had been shot, police said.

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama talked about Americans paying their fair share in taxes. For most of my life, I thought that I had a reasonably good idea about what "fair" means — except for that period when my children were young and "fair" meant getting precisely what they wanted, when they wanted it, and if they didn't get it instantly it was "not fair. " The meaning of the word became especially tricky when each of my children wanted something different.

James K. McIntyre, a retired mail carrier who worked a route in Rodgers Forge, died of cancer Saturday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Northwood resident was 70. Born in Baltimore and raised on Central Avenue, he was a 1953 graduate of Dunbar High School. He served in the Army and played on a touring military baseball team. He then joined the Postal Service and was a letter carrier for 32 years before his retirement in 1992, with assignments at the Waverly and later Govans substations.

Carroll Leonard "Bo" Snyder, a former longtime Randallstown postal worker and World War II veteran, died Sept. 11 of pneumonia at Carroll Hospice's Dove House in Westminster. The Sykesville resident was 90. Mr. Snyder was born on his family's farm in Randallstown and spent his early years there. The farm was lost after his father's death in 1931, and five years later, Mr. Snyder dropped out of Randallstown School, which in those days went from grades one to 12, to help support his family.

Mario E. DeRuggiero, a mail carrier in the Parkville and Hamilton areas for 35 years who used to throw pizza parties for his Fullerton neighborhood, died at Mariner Health of Forest Hill on Oct. 13 of complications from diabetes. He was 80. Born in New York to Italian immigrants, Mr. DeRuggiero moved to Baltimore after serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II. In 1950, Mr. DeRuggiero took a job with the U.S. Postal Service, distributing the mail until his retirement in 1985.

After delivering 37 years' worth of mail to hundreds of Ellicott City businesses and residents, Tom Merson, 61, now is on the other side of the mailbox, receiving about 60 cards congratulating him on his recent retirement as a mail carrier -- from people on his former routes.As Merson made his final stops along his route in late July, some people took pains to let him know he would be missed. At Howard County Medical Building on Chevrolet Drive, employees at Diagnostic Radiology Associates gave him a gift certificate for dinner.

WASHINGTON - The FBI and the U.S. Postal Service offered rewards yesterday of up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever sent anthrax-tainted letters to NBC in New York and to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in Washington. The offer came as the anthrax attacks struck a third broadcast network and a New Jersey postal facility. Medical authorities said yesterday that an anthrax skin infection has been identified in a woman who handles mail for CBS News anchor Dan Rather.

William L. Ridenour is scheduled to be sworn in as Baltimore's 39th postmaster at 1:30 p.m. today at a ceremony in the War Memorial Building. John E. Potter, the U.S. postmaster general, is to attend. Ridenour will oversee the postal operations at the main downtown post office and 30 stations and branches, with a total of 2,200 employees. He most recently was postmaster of Alexandria, Va. He began his postal career in 1980 as a mail carrier in Baltimore.

The U.S. Postal Service says everyone should have free mail delivery, and in Union Bridge, that could mean erecting mailboxes along a stretch of Main Street.Town officials, however, contend that mailboxes along the street would be impractical, dangerous and unattractive.The prospect of mailboxes crowding narrow sidewalks and postal vehicles causing traffic detours has the Town Council considering an ordinance to bar mailboxes on Main Street."It would be almost impossible to have mailboxes on Main Street," said Mayor Perry L. Jones Jr. "It's not a question of whether [residents]

The Anne Arundel County Department of Aging, the U.S. Postal Service and the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 4422 are sponsoring a Carrier Alert program for seniors.Under the free program, mail carriers will notify the Department of Aging if seniors don't pick up their mail.The Department of Aging will maintain a roster of participants and will send a list of their names and addresses to the post office every week.If mail accumulates at a participant's home, the mail carrier will notify Department of Aging officials, who will call the person or ask a neighbor to call.

Hilah Glaze, a mother of five and a former Miss Morgan State, died Aug. 21 of a heart infection at St. Agnes Hospital. She was 83. Hilah Brown, the sixth of 10 children of a homemaker and a mail carrier, was born in Baltimore and raised in Upton. After graduating from St. Frances Academy in 1946, she attended Morgan State. Mrs. Glaze was an active and prominent figure on campus, joining the majorettes and Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and being crowned "Miss Morgan" in 1950.

In her 24 years of delivering mail to hundreds of East Baltimoreans, Earline Bushrod has faced all manner of weather-related challenges. She says the worst mishaps occur when things aren't what they seem. An example? Stepping into 2 feet of snow when you're expecting only a few inches. "It just leaned me over a bit," Bushrod said as she stumbled before regaining her balance during her route. "But I'll continue to do what I do." Bushrod, 54, and the rest of her fellow postal service workers went back to business Thursday while city, state and federal employees had another day off. Baltimore streets were largely clear, but pathways to mail slots at many homes were not, after two 20-inch-plus storms in five days.

When Millard Taylor noticed that three of his workers' compensation checks hadn't arrived in the mail on schedule, he decided to investigate. After some digging, Taylor discovered that the three checks, along with a Social Security check, had been cashed - even though they never reached the mailbox of his Cooksville home, according to county prosecutors. Taylor was one of three people victimized by a former mail carrier who stole checks from customers on her route and deposited them into her personal bank account, prosecutors say. Deidre Grace, 47, of the 8300 block of Timberlake Court in Severn, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to stealing almost $15,000 in Social Security and workers compensation checks from three Cooksville residents last year.

LACEY, Wash. - Until late last month, Dean Peterson was a relatively anonymous 48-year-old mail carrier. Then he went to Boston and nervously introduced a resolution to include kilts as an official uniform option for male Postal Service carriers. And even though his pitch to the National Association of Letter Carriers convention failed, Peterson has gone worldwide. While Peterson and his wife, Joni, were in Boston, their two teenage sons back home were fielding phone calls. Peterson was all over the media and Internet in North America, Great Britain, India - pretty much anywhere that has some knowledge of that Gaelic tradition.

Ruth E. Brigham, who lived in Baltimore for more than 20 years, died in her sleep Wednesday at her home in Jacobus, Pa. She was 78. The cause of death has not been determined. Born in Cincinnati, she was the daughter of the late Clifford Day and Gertrude Hausser Day. She studied nursing and was employed for a time by The Cincinnati Times-Star, which was absorbed by The Cincinnati Post in 1958. Mrs. Brigham settled in Baltimore in 1960 when her husband, William H. Brigham Jr., a Navy veteran, took a job with the Social Security Administration.

The Q: Clay Seeley of Owings Mills believes he receives his mail based on the whims of his mail carrier, claiming that the "post office is very inconsistent in their delivery practices." Seeley said he had been living at his home for six years when a friend from Georgia had tickets to a stock car race mailed to Seeley's address. "If he couldn't make the trip, I would use them," Seeley said. "The arrival date came and went with no tickets. My friend called to tell me that the race track had called to tell him that the tickets had been returned, `No Such Person at this Address.

There won't be any mailboxes on Main Street in Union Bridge.The Town Council approved an ordinance yesterday banning mailboxes on the narrow, heavily traveled street, resolving a months-old issue.The placement of mailboxes along Main Street became an issue in April. Then-U.S. Postmaster General Marvin Runyon, who retired in May, announced that rural residents who live within a quarter-mile of a post office are eligible for free post office boxes if a mail carrier does not pass their houses.

Hilah Glaze, a mother of five and a former Miss Morgan State, died Aug. 21 of a heart infection at St. Agnes Hospital. She was 83. Hilah Brown, the sixth of 10 children of a homemaker and a mail carrier, was born in Baltimore and raised in Upton. After graduating from St. Frances Academy in 1946, she attended Morgan State. Mrs. Glaze was an active and prominent figure on campus, joining the majorettes and Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and being crowned "Miss Morgan" in 1950.

William L. Ridenour is scheduled to be sworn in as Baltimore's 39th postmaster at 1:30 p.m. today at a ceremony in the War Memorial Building. John E. Potter, the U.S. postmaster general, is to attend. Ridenour will oversee the postal operations at the main downtown post office and 30 stations and branches, with a total of 2,200 employees. He most recently was postmaster of Alexandria, Va. He began his postal career in 1980 as a mail carrier in Baltimore.