Secretary

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will kick off the school year in Maryland on Wednesday, with an address and Q&A session with 850 Baltimore County language arts teachers at Perry Hall High School.  According to a release from the U.S. Department of Education, Duncan will join new county Superintendent Dallas Dance, and new state Superintendent Lillian Lowery, in discussing the Obama administration's education reform efforts, specifically those...

Effa Lee "Effie" Roehrle, a homemaker who earlier had been a secretary, died July 20 of heart failure at the Dove House in Westminster. She was 77. Effa Lee "Effie" Saxton was born in Birmingham, Ala., and moved with her family to Baltimore in 1940. After graduating from Milford Mill High School in 1954, she attended the Bard Avon School, a Baltimore business and secretarial school. She was married in 1959 to Veronn Roehrle, and worked as a secretary for the Baltimore City Health Department until 1962, when she left to raise her family.

Ruth Miller, a longtime Israel Bonds secretary, died Sunday of a stroke at Emeritus at Pikesville assisted-living facility. She was 92. The daughter of Russian-Polish immigrants, Ruth Scurnick was born in Baltimore and raised on Riggs Avenue. After graduating from Western High School in 1937, she attended secretarial school and worked as a legal secretary before World War II. She was married in 1952 to Sidney Miller, owner of an Eden Street tavern, who died in 1989. Mrs. Miller worked as a legal secretary for several Baltimore law firms before joining Israel Bonds as a secretary in 1966.

On the 200th anniversary of the U.S. declaration of war on Britain and its colonies, representatives of the United States, Britain and Canada gathered at Fort McHenry to sign a "declaration of peace. " "Much … has changed in 200 years," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told a crowd of politicians, diplomats and military leaders Monday. "Today, we stand together as inseparable friends, as we have for decades. We work together. We advance together. We fight together. " The War of 1812 was the last conflict among the United States, Britain and Canada.

Commerce Secretary John Bryson is blaming a seizure for the multiple car crashes he caused in California over the weekend. He was cited by police, according to Tribune and wire sources . Bryson, 68, allegedly hit a car stopped at a train track, got out and talked to the passengers and then hit their car again as he pulled away. He also hit another car before he was found passed out at the wheel later by police. It's unclear if he had more than one seizure or was disoriented after the first, said Dr. Gregory L. Krauss, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University who has not treated Bryson.

With Osama bin Laden dead, the war in Iraq over and the war in Afghanistan winding down, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told graduating midshipmen Tuesday to prepare themselves for "one of the key projects" of their generation: building American strength in the Asia-Pacific region. "America's future prosperity and security are tied to our ability to advance peace and security along the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean and South Asia," he told the Class of 2012 during the graduation ceremony at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

Maryland's deputy secretary of labor stepped up Thursday as interim secretary, filling a job emptied when Alexander M. Sanchez left this week to become chief of staff to Baltimore's mayor. Scott R. Jensen worked two stints at the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. From 2007 to 2009, he was a special assistant to the secretary, focusing on expanding unemployment insurance benefits to part-time workers and aligning adult education — including in correctional facilities — with the state's workforce development system.

Speaking to hundreds of Baltimore's business leaders in Harbor East on Thursday morning, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised President Barack Obama's handling of the recession and outlined his boss' financial reform wish list, which includes cutting small business taxes and maintaining the federal student loan interest rate. The quickly organized event, suggested last week to the Greater Baltimore Committee, served as a platform for Geithner to attack presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's economic policies.

Maryland Labor Secretary Alexander M. Sanchez is leaving his state post to take over as Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's chief of staff. Sanchez will be her third chief of staff in so many years and will succeed Peter O'Malley, brother to Gov. Martin O'Malley. Peter O'Malley left for a position in the private sector after less than one year in the role. Sanchez is due to start May 16. In a statement, Rawlings-Blake said Sanchez will bring “a wealth of great experience" to the job. She said his experience with workforce development will "go a long way" to bolster the city's economy.