Scholar

Russell Franklin Myers, 89, USF&G divisional managerRussell Franklin Myers, a retired United States Fidelity & Guaranty divisional manager, died Saturday of cerebro-vascular disease at Sinai Hospital. He was 89 and lived at Wesley Home in Mount Washington.He retired in 1972 from the insurance company, where he headed its Del Mar subsidiary, the company's financing division.Born on a farm near Greenmount, Mr. Myers graduated from Westminster High School and the Baltimore Business College. In the early 1930s, he attended the evening school of the Johns Hopkins University.

If you have never read a book about William Shakespeare, please read this one: "Shakespeare: A Life," by Park Honan (Oxford University Press, 450 pages, $39.95). It's an exceptional work about a man and his times and plays that are still as remarkable today as they were 400 years ago.As you may know -- assuming that you were paying attention in school -- Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564, the child of Roman Catholic parents, who became a Protestant. He went to schools in Warwickshire in a small-town environment.

In the world of biblical scholarship, the Rev. Raymond E. Brown was a pioneer in Roman Catholic scripture studies who was perhaps the world's foremost authority on the Gospel of St. John.But to those who knew him personally, he was a man of simple piety and a teacher who could translate profound biblical truths into language that anyone could understand.Father Brown, who taught from 1959 to 1971 at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Roland Park, died Saturday of a heart attack in Redwood City, Calif.

John Henrik Clarke, 83, an Alabama sharecropper's son whose thirst for unfettered knowledge led him to hop a freight train to New York and transform himself into an African history scholar who helped spur the development of black studies, died of a heart attack Thursday.Mr. Clarke was a professor emeritus at Hunter College, where he joined the faculty as a lecturer in 1969. He established black studies programs there and at Cornell University.If it is unusual to become a full college professor without benefit of a high school diploma, let alone a Ph.D.

Rebecca Carpenter, an English professor at Western Maryland College, has been named "the most promising young [Joseph] Conrad scholar" in the world.Carpenter, 29, received the Prize for Younger Conradians from the Joseph Conrad Society of America for her devotion to studying the work of the British author, who wrote "Heart of Darkness," "Lord Jim" and other novels."

AT GLENELG Country School's academic awards ceremony and commencement, Rainer Hahn led the list of academic honorees by winning the Governor's Scholastic Merit Award, the Robert C. Byrd Award Nomination and the title of Tandy Technology Scholar.Hahn joined Corinne Berk-Smith, Heather Sutherland, and Jordana Woodford as Tandy Academic Scholars.Hahn also was a Maryland Distinguished Scholar finalist and a National Merit Commended Scholar, an honor shared with Sehla Ashai and Akosua Kankam.Berk-Smith, Kiron Mallya, Sutherland and Jordana Woodford received honorable mention in the Maryland Distinguished Scholar competition.

Bluma L. Trell,94, a scholar of ancient Greece, died Tuesday in Englewood, N.J. She was an expert on the Temple of Artemis, built about 550 B.C., and her reconstruction of it is on display at the British Museum.

TALK ABOUT graduating with honors: How about Julia Beth Musiker of Dolphin Court in the Linthicum-Ferndale area, valedictorian for the Class of '97 at Seton Keough High School.Julia received the Archdiocese of Baltimore Distinctive Scholar Award; the Edgar N. Ganster Award for General Excellence from Knights of Columbus Council 370; the Gerard A. Heidrick Jr. Memorial Award for the Art of Critical Thinking; the Tandy Technology Scholars Award for Excellence in Math, Science and Computer Science; the U.S. President's Award for Educational Excellence; and her school's math department award for Outstanding Student in AP Calculus.

George P. Oslin, 97, whose idea for the singing telegram raised Western Union profits along with the spirits of Depression-era Americans, died Thursday in Delray Beach, Fla.He was public relations director of the New York-based telegram company in 1933 when he came up with the idea of having operator Lucille Lipps sing "Happy Birthday" to singer Rudy Vallee. Columnist Walter Winchell wrote about it and the singing telegram took off. Mr. Oslin also wrote yearbook reviews for encyclopedias and contributed articles on telecommunications to newspapers and magazines.

Remember Jean Fugett? Played football for Cardinal Gibbons High School, went to Amherst College for his brains, then played pro ball with the Dallas Cowboys?You don't hear so much about him any more, because his glamorous playing days are over and he's just a quiet attorney and businessman who's made millions of dollars around the various nations of the world while jetting off to Paris every month for fun and profit.Among other things in his life, Fugett holds onto his memories. The other night, he went to the 33rd annual Scholar Athlete Awards Dinner, which routinely performs the miracle of reminding us why we still treasure sports in this era of monstrous pro salaries, vanishing loyalty to communities and egos the size of the Hindenberg.

Please take a good look at Professor Henry Louis Gates. He is 5-foot-7, weighs 150 pounds, wears glasses and uses a cane. His legs are of unequal length, his mustache and goatee are gray. He is 58 years old and looks it. It's important to see Mr. Gates - scholar, author, documentarian, Harvard University professor and African-American man - because that's what Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., police department apparently did not do in the July 16 confrontation that has ignited debate about racial bias in the U.S. "justice" system.

Does the significant rise in Baltimore public school MSA scores indicate that the city schools are finally turning a corner? Yes 4% No 93% Not sure 3% (3,590 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Do you think the police in Cambridge, Mass., acted wrongly in the incident that resulted in the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Colleges Navy women's soccer player wins Patriot scholar-athlete award Two-time first-team Academic All-American Lizzie Barnes of the Navy women's soccer team was selected as the Patriot League's 2008-09 Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the league office announced Tuesday. Barnes is the third Navy women's soccer player to earn the award and is the third straight and fifth overall Navy athlete to receive the accolade. Navy's five recipients of the award are the most of any conference school.

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian officials announced yesterday the release of a scholar from Maryland held on national security and espionage charges for more than 100 days in the capital's Evin Prison. Haleh Esfandiari, 67, an Iranian-American from Potomac, has been released on bail set at the equivalent of about $333,000, according to Iranian news agencies. A judiciary official said the court had no further need to hold Esfandiari, the Fars News Agency reported. Shireen Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner and Esfandiari's lawyer, said the scholar had put up her mother's home in Tehran as bail.

JOSE MIGUEL BATTLE SR., 77 Alleged crime boss Mr. Battle, who authorities alleged was the godfather of one of the country's largest Hispanic organized crime groups, died Friday at a medical facility in South Carolina, his attorney, Jack R. Blumenfeld said Sunday. Mr. Battle was at the facility for kidney dialysis, Blumenfeld said. Mr. Blumenfeld said no autopsy was conducted and that he was not sure of cause of death. Mr. Battle had long struggled with his health, he said. "He had a myriad of problems," Mr. Blumenfeld said.

Robert Ciancaglini's little brother, Joey, likes to tease him that he's overrated. Evidently, the Baltimore Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame didn't think so. The organization selected Ciancaglini as its top winner in the 44th Annual Scholar-Athlete dinner last night at Martin's West in Woodlawn. Held since 1961, the dinner annually recognizes the top senior scholar-athletes from the 90 football-playing high schools in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Mangus, Yost win business award Becky Mangus and Cathy Yost, owners of The Business Monthly, were recognized in the category of Business Achievement in the 12th Annual CBED Awards Program of the Committee for Business and Economic Diversity of the Howard County Economic Development Authority. Lisa Madera Filar, president of the Filar Design Group Ltd., won the Individual Achievement Award, and Andrea Griesmar of Columbia Bank received the Business Diversity Achievement Award. A Special Recognition Award was given to Alpha Achievers of Oakland Mills High School, a program established in 1997 to encourage leadership and academic achievement among young African-American men. Participants attend monthly meetings with African-American business leaders and are encouraged to develop and manage projects.

On February 24, 2006 ROBERT "Bob" DAVID SCHOLAR, beloved son of Wanda Mae Walls of Hopewood, PA, and the late Robert Scholar, devoted brother of Robin M. Scholar of Uniontown, PA, and the late Kevin Mark Scholar, dear significant other of Jerome Johnson of Baltimore, MD. A Memorial Mass will be held at a later date. Arrangements by the family owned Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home Inc. (410) 377-8300.

The cruise line Royal Caribbean plans to join with a former university educator based in Baltimore and a school in Australia to offer a semester aboard a ship that aims to prepare students for an increasingly global work environment. Joseph Olander is president of the educational collaboration that will operate a vessel to be called The Scholar Ship. He has opened an office in Tide Point and signed a deal with the cruise line that will dedicate one of its vessels and about $10 million to launch the program next year.

When President Bush grants the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts to 17 scholars, musicians, historians and others today, two Marylanders will be among those singled out. Eva Brann, a professor at St. John's College in Annapolis, and Walter Berns, a Bethesda historian, will receive the humanities prize during Oval Office ceremonies. Brann, a philosopher and intellectual historian, has taught at St. John's for the past 40 years, long ago emerging as a driving force at an institution The Weekly Standard once described as "the Great Books school ... where high thinking is carried on with democratic courtesies."