Public Speaking

Diana Kaufman, a retired public speaking teacher, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at her Randallstown home. She was 71. Born Diana Cohen in the Bronx, N.Y., she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in English and speech from Queens College in Flushing, N.Y. She moved to Baltimore in 1964 and taught literature at Northwestern High School. She later taught public speaking and business communication at what is now Towson University and Baltimore City Community College. She retired in 1986.

Andree W. Williams, a former Roland Park Country School educator and a gardener, died Jan. 30 of heart failure at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. She was 89. Andree Louise Wood was born and raised in Fort Thomas, Ky., where she graduated from high school. She attended Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. In 1944, she married Samuel C. Williams Sr., an educator, who moved in 1957 to St. Paul's School. The couple lived on the school's Brooklandville campus until moving to Ruxton in the mid-1960s.

FACES TURNED red, palms turned sweaty, minds went blank. These are some of the ways Toastmasters members recalled reacting when speaking in front of audiences. That was before joining the Patuxent Toastmasters club, which meets twice a month in Wilde Lake village. Since joining, members say, they are comfortable giving talks. If they do feel a touch of the jitters, they always know they can mask their fears. "Almost everyone is afraid of public speaking," Harper's Choice resident Emma Frost said at a meeting at the Bryant Woods neighborhood center.

LOS ANGELES -- Yolanda King, an actress, producer and motivational speaker who was the eldest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and who turned to the performing arts to carry on her father's civil rights legacy, has died. She was 51. Ms. King died late Tuesday in Santa Monica, said Steve Klein, a spokesman for the King Center in Atlanta. According to Klein, family members suspected her death could be related to a heart problem, but he provided no additional details. In a statement, the King family called her an "advocate for peace and nonviolence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society."

Dr. Lucia Sheila Hawthorne, a retired Morgan State University public speaking professor, died of complications from diabetes at Good Samaritan Hospital on July 5. The Morgan Park resident was 68. Born in Baltimore and raised on McKean Avenue, she was a 1954 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. She earned a degree in language arts from Morgan State University and a master's degree from Washington State University. She received a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in 1971.

ANJANETTE WIGGINS gripped the lectern firmly with both hands and began talking. She told 300 Bryn Mawr School students and faculty about the accidental death of her father 12 years ago, when she was 6 and he 37.From her perspective a dozen years later, Wiggins said, her dad's death "is just as much a part of my life as his life was." She said she has come to fear losing her memories of her dad. Memories aren't like rewindable motion pictures, she said. "They're like snapshots." They fade with time.

James C. Pine, who was believed to be Gilman School's oldest living graduate and who taught there for more than 40 years, died Thursday at the Heron Point retirement community in Chestertown. He was 101. Mr. Pine's philosophy of hard work and discipline helped shape Gilman's reputation, according to fellow teachers. He was head of the history department and director of the public speaking program for much of his tenure there. "I learned as much from him about the art and craft of teaching as any other person," said Redmond Finney, who began as a young teacher under Mr. Pine's tutelage and went on to serve as the school's headmaster from 1968 to 1992.

Alayna Newsome beat her alarm clock by a half-hour and woke up at 6:57 a.m. energized and excited. Even though it would be seven hours until the camera would roll, the St. John's Parish Day School third-grader was pumped. Alayna, of Woodbine, had spent the past week combing Web sites for current events and perfecting her poise as she prepared to read a news script in front of her classmates. This year, third-graders at the private Ellicott City school have gained a greater appreciation for broadcast journalists, current events and public speaking through a required newscast presentation.

Jerry Seinfeld notes in his delightful best-seller, "SeinLanguage," that the No. 1 fear of Americans (according to surveys) is public speaking.No. 2 is death. ''Does that seem right?'' he asks. ''That means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.''I was thinking along similar lines last spring when I was asked by the Loch Raven Optimist Club to judge an oratory contest. The competition took place in a Parkville church social hall, and I watched as eight well-dressed young teen-agers came before us in turn, paused for a dramatic second (during which I silently prayed they would not run from the hall in panic)

A four-year starter and captain, Clapp has mostly played sweeper this season but also has been used at center midfielder and striker for the Lions. He started playing soccer when he was 4 years old and currently plays for the Thunder Soccer Club. With a 4.0 grade point average, Clapp wants to study math and computer science. Among the colleges he is considering are William & Mary, St. Mary's and Maryland. Clapp was the class president his sophomore and junior years and is vice president of the National Honor Society.

Kurt Vonnegut, the gentle humanist who challenged Americans to be true to themselves and mistrust technology, wealth and the arrogance of power, died last week, possibly with a bemused appreciation of the fact that all of the ugliest aspects of popular culture he challenged for more than half a century appeared to be thriving. The author of 19 novels and an array of plays and short stories, he struggled to make a living as a writer of science fiction until the success in 1969 of Slaughterhouse-Five, a fictional treatment of his survival as a prisoner of war during the tragic and senseless Allied bombing of Dresden late in World War II. An estimated 135,000 people died in the Dresden firestorm.

Alayna Newsome beat her alarm clock by a half-hour and woke up at 6:57 a.m. energized and excited. Even though it would be seven hours until the camera would roll, the St. John's Parish Day School third-grader was pumped. Alayna, of Woodbine, had spent the past week combing Web sites for current events and perfecting her poise as she prepared to read a news script in front of her classmates. This year, third-graders at the private Ellicott City school have gained a greater appreciation for broadcast journalists, current events and public speaking through a required newscast presentation.

A four-year starter and captain, Clapp has mostly played sweeper this season but also has been used at center midfielder and striker for the Lions. He started playing soccer when he was 4 years old and currently plays for the Thunder Soccer Club. With a 4.0 grade point average, Clapp wants to study math and computer science. Among the colleges he is considering are William & Mary, St. Mary's and Maryland. Clapp was the class president his sophomore and junior years and is vice president of the National Honor Society.

Do public employees lose their First Amendment rights as a condition of their work? The U.S. Supreme Court's closely divided answer to that question last week sends a troubling signal to government workers, including whistleblowers, who want to challenge public policies. When a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles questioned in writing the truthfulness of statements made in an affidavit by a sheriff's deputy seeking a search warrant and recommended that the case be dismissed, his supervisors were not so concerned and proceeded to prosecute.

James C. Pine, who was believed to be Gilman School's oldest living graduate and who taught there for more than 40 years, died Thursday at the Heron Point retirement community in Chestertown. He was 101. Mr. Pine's philosophy of hard work and discipline helped shape Gilman's reputation, according to fellow teachers. He was head of the history department and director of the public speaking program for much of his tenure there. "I learned as much from him about the art and craft of teaching as any other person," said Redmond Finney, who began as a young teacher under Mr. Pine's tutelage and went on to serve as the school's headmaster from 1968 to 1992.

SANDY SPRING -- The time has come once more for Delmas P. Wood Jr., retired insurance man, to rise to greatness. Time to strap on the iron leg braces, don the gray suit and fedora, step to the microphone and call upon Congress to declare war on Japan. Or glide past cheering crowds in the blue 1936 Ford Phaeton convertible, exuding the confidence that might yet lift a despairing nation. It is spring, after all, when Wood returns from Florida to get back on the circuit of parades and historic commemorations in the persona of his political hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died 60 years ago this month.

WHEN DAN McClanahan became print production manager at the Pennysaver, he was comfortable that he had the graphic-arts skills needed for the position. Also, his work as a plate maker had made him familiar with the machines and mechanical processes involved in producing the weekly magazine. Still, one part of his job made the Crofton resident nervous. As a manager, he would be responsible for making oral presentations at company meetings about such topics as production and safety. Unfortunately, like many people, Dan was not a confident public speaker.

Your heart feels like it's exploding, your hands are trembling beads of sweat are exploding on your forehead, your tongue has ballooned to twice its normal size and one thought dominates all others:"I'm dying."Everyone wants to go to heaven, the saying goes, but nobody wants to die to get there, unless -- you could add -- they're called on to make a speech. In that case, millions would sooner risk meeting their maker than dying like a bad comedian in front of a bunch of strangers.Or colleagues or friends.

As a rule, journalists don't make history -- they merely record it. But if any journalist has earned the right to be called a historic figure, it's William F. Buckley Jr., who founded National Review in 1955. Before that time, conservatism in America had been not a movement but a jumble of far-flung individuals whose views were dismissed as hopelessly irrelevant by the liberal establishment. Buckley started NR (as the magazine is known) to serve as a rallying point for conservatives who longed, in his oft-quoted words, to "stand athwart history, yelling Stop."

Dr. Lucia Sheila Hawthorne, a retired Morgan State University public speaking professor, died of complications from diabetes at Good Samaritan Hospital on July 5. The Morgan Park resident was 68. Born in Baltimore and raised on McKean Avenue, she was a 1954 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. She earned a degree in language arts from Morgan State University and a master's degree from Washington State University. She received a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in 1971.