Psychologist

Leo Edson "Ed" Harrold, a retired psychologist and labor negotiator, died of congestive heart failure Sunday at his Columbia home. He was 78. Mr. Harrold was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Brentwood, Pa. He served in the Naval Reserves and was a long-distance truck driver before entering Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1965. He was a member of the faculty at IUP, where he earned a master's degree in psychology in 1967. Mr. Harrold was director of the Harrisburg State Hospital, formerly the Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital, from 1970 to 1974, when he moved to Laurel to head the alcohol and drug counseling center at Fort Meade.

MILTON WEXLER, 98 Hollywood psychoanalyst Milton Wexler, a prominent Hollywood psychoanalyst whose efforts to find a cure for the disease that killed his wife led scientists to pinpoint the Huntington's gene, died March 16 of respiratory failure at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., his daughters said. Though trained in law and psychology, Dr. Wexler spent much of the past three decades unlocking the mysteries of Huntington's disease, a rare, incurable genetic disorder that slowly killed his wife, her father and three brothers.

The 40-year-old red tractor won't start. Flea beetles attacked the cabbage. The broccoli was stunted and bitter. Drought killed all but 50 of 2,000 newly planted strawberry plants, and the would-be new well came up dry at 510 feet.It has been the kind of season that might send a conventional farmer into debt and despair. But except for long days in the hot sun, there's not much conventional about Cromwell Valley CSA. Not the four full-time farmers, children of the suburbs who include a former clinical psychologist.

Scott Yinger stands in front of a video screen firing off three rounds at the chubby man with the comb-over.He is no video-crazed teen squandering his allowance in the arcade. Yinger, 38, is a Maryland state trooper sharpening his shooting skills on the video simulator in the basement of state police headquarters in Pikesville.Police and military trainers use high-tech video to reproduce shoot-or-be-shot scenarios. By shooting at make-believe bad guys in realistic scenes, officers can hone their marksmanship and improve their reaction time.

Q. My 8-year-old son has been struggling with reading. A friend suggested I take him to a psychologist for I.Q. testing. How will psychological testing help determine what his problem is with reading?A. Assuming your child has had a medical examination and there is nothing physically interfering with his reading, then contacting a psychologist who has experience working with children and expertise in psychological testing may be your next course of action.Psychological testing provides a sampling of your child's academic functioning and is useful for helping determine teaching strategies to use with him.The psychologist will probably start by interviewing you about his developmental and educational history, and for an understanding of your son's problems from the parental perspective.

Psychologist Elizabeth Feil grew up in a big brick house -- with an elevator and pool -- on the Main Line in Philadelphia. On Tuesday night, state police say, she wound up in a Pulaski Highway motel with a tattooed former patient who had just escaped from prison.Police, with help from her angry husband, Glenn Bosshard, who has been courting the media this week, have made the 43-year-old Feil -- a child of privilege with an Ivy League education -- the unlikely star of a tawdry prison escape drama.

A former prison psychologist suspected of helping a convicted murderer and an armed robber escape from a state penitentiary in Jessup last week surrendered to state police in Glen Burnie about 7: 45 p.m. last night.Police said Elizabeth L. Feil, 43, appeared before an Anne Arundel County District Court commissioner on two counts of being an accessory to escape after the fact; two counts of harboring an escaped inmate; and with obstructing and hindering the investigation into the May 18 escape from the Maryland Correctional Institution -- Jessup.

THE TAXI we ordered upon leaving the doctor's office arrived in due time, driven by a young man in his 30s. After a brief conversation, the driver said to my husband, "you must be a teacher." "Yes," my husband replied, "I'm a history professor, but how did you know that?""When you answered a question just now, you said 'correct.' Only teachers use that exact word when responding to questions," the driver said.He went on to tell us how he enjoyed observing people. Almost immediately, I was impressed with his excellent vocabulary and apparently high intelligence.

When Emily Gibson was a toddler, she told her mother, "Mittens make my hands sad." A parent would say, "How cute," but a psychologist interested in human development might cite her observation as an example of a child's creativity: the ability to approach a problem (in this case having to wear mittens) in a new and unusual way.When Emily grows up she may become a great American novelist, or she might work for a public relations firm. There's no telling.Psychologists don't have irrefutable statistics on whether creativity in a child is a predictor of what he or she does later in life.

LAS VEGAS -- After hearing favorable testimony at his licensing hearing from two psychologists, Mike Tyson half-joked, For some reason I feel like Norman Bates with all these doctors here," referring to the troubled killer in "Psycho."

Nancy J. Bowers, a retired psychologist who had taught in college and specialized in family therapy, died Aug. 10 of cancer at her Tuscany Canterbury home. She was 68. Nancy Joan Johnson was born in Chicago and raised there and in Washington. She earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1963 from the University of Cincinnati. She held a master's degree in Montessori education, which she earned from Xavier College in 1966, and a doctorate in psychology in 1975 from Tulane University.

Jackson's mom to keep kids; Rowe gets visitation Katherine Jackson will raise her son's children under an agreement with the King of Pop's ex-wife, who will have visitation rights under the supervision of a child psychologist, attorneys said Thursday. The agreement calls for Michael Jackson's mother to remain guardian of the pop star's three children, who range in age from 7 to 12, in accordance with wishes spelled out in the singer's 2002 will. No money is changing hands as a result of the agreement, the statement said.

Paul D. Imre, a retired Baltimore County public health official and decorated World War II veteran, died of a heart attack Saturday at his Columbia home. He was 83. Born in New York City, he enlisted in the Army immediately after his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. He became an infantry paratrooper in World War II. He parachuted into Carentan, France, two days after the Allied invasion began and fought his way through the country until he reached Belgium. During heavy fighting in the Battle of Bulge in January 1945, he was wounded in the back by shrapnel near Mande St. Etienne.

Former Raven sentenced in fatal hit-and-run in '07 A former Baltimore Ravens player was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail in a fatal hit-and-run accident last year in Joppa, according to the Harford County state's attorney. Javin E. Hunter, 28, of Orchard Park, Mich., was sentenced to five years in prison, with all but six months suspended, after pleading guilty to charges stemming from the July 17, 2007, accident, said prosecutor Joseph I. Cassilly. Police said Hunter left the scene after the Chrysler 300 he was driving struck a 53-year-old White Marsh man riding a motorized scooter on U.S. 40 near Joppa Road.

Editor's note: Sports columnist Peter Schmuck begins a new blog today. He'll hit on a variety of topics, but the focus will be Orioles and Ravens. This is an excerpt from his first post. For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog. The first thing I'd like to do before I unlink my tether from the journalistic mother ship and float off into the blogosphere is to separate fact from fiction with a quick game of true or false: True or false: Peter Schmuck has relocated into cyberspace and will no longer be the bright, insightful and wildly popular columnist we've come to love in the print edition of The Sun. False.

Just five days before twice-convicted killer Kevin G. Johns Jr. is accused of strangling to death a fellow inmate on a prison bus, he told a psychologist at Baltimore's maximum-security prison that he was struggling with an "evil force" and that he might want to discontinue his therapy to protect the therapist, a forensic psychiatrist testified for the defense yesterday. "I like you. I don't want to hurt you. But I don't know what this thing can do," Dr. David A. Williamson quoted Johns as telling the psychologist Jan. 27, 2005.

Leo Edson "Ed" Harrold, a retired psychologist and labor negotiator, died of congestive heart failure Sunday at his Columbia home. He was 78. Mr. Harrold was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Brentwood, Pa. He served in the Naval Reserves and was a long-distance truck driver before entering Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1965. He was a member of the faculty at IUP, where he earned a master's degree in psychology in 1967. Mr. Harrold was director of the Harrisburg State Hospital, formerly the Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital, from 1970 to 1974, when he moved to Laurel to head the alcohol and drug counseling center at Fort Meade.

MILTON WEXLER, 98 Hollywood psychoanalyst Milton Wexler, a prominent Hollywood psychoanalyst whose efforts to find a cure for the disease that killed his wife led scientists to pinpoint the Huntington's gene, died March 16 of respiratory failure at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., his daughters said. Though trained in law and psychology, Dr. Wexler spent much of the past three decades unlocking the mysteries of Huntington's disease, a rare, incurable genetic disorder that slowly killed his wife, her father and three brothers.

Psychologist wins achievement award School psychologist Melissa Leahy received the achievement award from the Maryland State School Health Council. This award is given to a person for contributions that have led to improvements to comprehensive school-health programs. Leahy is a psychologist at a elementary school and a comprehensive middle school with a special-education behavioral-support program. She also serves as the Positive Behaviors and Interventions Support coordinator and is a member of the PBIS State Leadership Team.

RICHARD CARLSON, 45 Psychologist, author Richard Carlson, author of the best-selling Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, died Wednesday after falling ill on a flight from San Francisco to New York as part of a tour to promote his new book, Don't Get Scrooged, said a spokeswoman for HarperSanFrancisco, his publisher. A psychologist, he advocated tackling life with good humor, positive thinking and perspective. Born and raised in the east San Francisco Bay area, he earned a bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University and a doctorate in psychology from Sierra University.