Turners Station

Three people were struck in a drive-by shooting Sunday afternoon in the Turners Station neighborhood in eastern Baltimore County, police said. According to police, none of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries. They were being treated at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Baltimore County police spokesman Lt. Robert McCullough said the incident began about 4:30 p.m. with a fight at the Fleming Center at the intersection of New Pittsburg Ave. and Main Street. The fight spilled over into the 500 block of Main Street, where a drive-by shooting occurred, McCullough said.

Jesse Tyson Sr., a retired mason who was known for his grilling skills, died April 27 of kidney failure at his Edgemere home. He was 70. The son of a mason and a homemaker, he was born in Clarksville, Va., and was raised in Edgemere. He was a graduate of Baltimore County public schools. Before retiring in 2006, Mr. Tyson worked locally for more than 30 years as a mason, and was "exceptionally proud" of his designs and craftsmanship in building fireplaces, family members said.

Long before the best-selling book about Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells was written, Turners Station neighbors gathered to honor her legacy, a tradition that continued Saturday. Lacks' great-granddaughters, born about half a century after her death from cervical cancer in 1951, bounded on the stage of Union Baptist Church, adorned with colorful silk flowers, to welcome the crowd of about 60. "I'm proud that they took her cells, because it helped the whole world," 14-year-old Aiyana Rodgers said.

Rebecca Rigger, a League of Women Voters activist who monitored the Baltimore County Planning Board, died of a heart attack March 25 at her Monkton home. She was 85. Born Rebecca Rogers in Big Island, Va., she was raised at an apple orchard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She earned a bachelor's degree from what is now James Madison University, where she was editor of the college newspaper. As a young woman, she moved to eastern Baltimore County and taught at Middle River Junior High School.

Kudos to residents of the southeastern Baltimore Count community of Turners Station for their determined and heartening campaign to reopen their local public library. The facility was one of many victims of massive budget cuts announced last month by County Executive Roger Hayden.Soliciting donations of thousands of books, the residents plan to resume operations soon in the community-owned building that had formerly housed the county-run branch. Local volunteers will staff the library when it reopens four days a week, says Peggy Patterson, president of Turners Station Concerned Citizens.

Baltimore County officials broke ground Monday on the $7.4 million Sollers Point Multi-Purpose Center, which will stand at the gateway to the historic Turners Station neighborhood and offer residents an auditorium, gym, full-service county library and community museum. "This is a true multipurpose building, not something cobbled together," said Dunbar Brooks, a 30-year resident of the neighborhood in eastern Baltimore County. "It will serve the needs of the entire community. " County officials said construction of the 28,000-square-foot building will begin Nov. 1. The center promises space for civic and church groups, as well as area youths and seniors.

Tamitcha Evans liked the idea of winning the Baltimore County girls' softball championship.But victory was bittersweet yesterday for Tamitcha and her Turners Station teammates as they received their trophies on the Bedford Elementary School athletic field in Sudbrook Park without playing the Catonsville Comets -- their final opponent in what has turned out to be a gameless tournament.Three all-girl teams refused to play Tamitcha's club in the tournament because the Turners Station roster includes four boys.

Margaret R. Adams, a lifelong Turners Station resident whose recollections of life in the eastern Baltimore County African-American community became part of a published oral history, died at her home there Sunday of a heart attack. She was 85. She was born Margaret Ruth Adams. Her father, Irvin C. Adams, and her mother, Emma M.S. Adams, had moved from Dillwin, Va., in 1909, after he took a job at the nearby Bethlehem Steel Corp. plant in Sparrows Point. In the published oral history, recorded by Louis S. Diggs, a Baltimore County historian, Ms. Adams recalled her early years growing up there with three brothers in what was called the Meadow.

Attention must be paid: A kid from Turners Station had a hand (and his Yamaha YBL-613H) in a Grammy last week. Thanks to Dwight Weems, the longtime and still-frisky front man for one of Baltimore's most popular party bands, Gazze, for pointing out the name of Douglas Purviance (Purr-vy-ance) in the music awards - specifically, in Category No. 49, Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. The award went to Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Purviance plays bass trombone (the Yamaha YBL-613H, in fact) with the band, and he's the orchestra's business manager.

Turners Station doesn't need Baltimore County to have a library.In fact, with book donations from the St. Vincent de Paul Society, U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, R-2nd, and others, the neighborhood may end up with more books and a bigger, better library.The old mini-library closed last month during County Executive Roger B. Hayden's fiscal slash-and-burn operation. Since then, the Turners Station community has launched its own campaign to reopen the library on a volunteer basis.Residents of the small, isolated black community south of Dundalk begged the county to let them keep their 3,600 books and operate the library with volunteers, said Peggy Patterson, president of Turners Station Concerned Citizens.

Sheldon Stephens, the first man to claim that “Sesame Street” puppeteer Kevin Clash had an underage relationship with him, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the former voice of Elmo. Stephens is the fourth man to sue the Turners Station native, but in November he was the first to make his allegations public. Clash, 52, has denied all of the allegations. He has said he and Stephens had a relationship after Stephens became an adult. Stephens soon retracted his claim, calling the relationship adult and consensual.

Who is giving Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenentz advice, or is he just thinking this stuff up on the fly ("Efficiency but no vision," Dec. 12)? The sale of the North Point police precinct is a terrible idea. I was a Baltimore County police officer for 31 years and spent approximately one-third of my career at the North Point station. I was elated when the Merritt Boulevard precinct opened knowing that it was in the center of the district and getting onto the main roads to a call for help was simple.

Long before the best-selling book about Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells was written, Turners Station neighbors gathered to honor her legacy, a tradition that continued Saturday. Lacks' great-granddaughters, born about half a century after her death from cervical cancer in 1951, bounded on the stage of Union Baptist Church, adorned with colorful silk flowers, to welcome the crowd of about 60. "I'm proud that they took her cells, because it helped the whole world," 14-year-old Aiyana Rodgers said.

After he graduated from the old Sollers Point Junior-Senior High School in 1953, Ed "Eddie" Bartee went to work forBethlehem Steel Corp.in Sparrows Point, where he became a representative for the steelworkers' union and was responsible for a $2 million budget. "That was a lot of money for a poor boy with a high school education," Bartee recalled Saturday. "I owe it all to my teachers. ... There's no question that the training I got carried me a long way. I'm thankful. I'm blessed.

Joan B. Walters, a former Baltimore Sun editorial assistant who earlier had worked in the newspaper's library, died New Year's Day of heart failure at her Rosedale home. She was 62. Joan Barnes was born in Baltimore and raised in Turners Station. She was a 1967 graduate of Dundalk High School. In 1969, Mrs. Walters joined the library staff of The Baltimore Sun, where she worked as an assistant. In 1991, she became an editorial assistant in the newspaper's old Harford County bureau in Bel Air. She was later reassigned to The Sun's metropolitan desk, where she continued working until retiring in 2007.

Three people were struck in a drive-by shooting Sunday afternoon in the Turners Station neighborhood in eastern Baltimore County, police said. According to police, none of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries. They were being treated at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Baltimore County police spokesman Lt. Robert McCullough said the incident began about 4:30 p.m. with a fight at the Fleming Center at the intersection of New Pittsburg Ave. and Main Street. The fight spilled over into the 500 block of Main Street, where a drive-by shooting occurred, McCullough said.

Baltimore County police identified Monday a man shot to death Sunday in the 600 block of Peach Orchard Lane in the Turners Station neighborhood. Sylvester Eric Brown, 22, of the 4100 block of Coleman Ave. in Baltimore was shot in the upper body about 3 a.m. and pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, according to police. A woman walking with Brown was also shot. Police said Theresa Bunk, 21, of the 400 block of Avondale Road in Dundalk was shot several times and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center with life-threatening injuries.

Fannie Posey Major Parsons, a businesswoman and community leader known as "Momma" by the legions of Turners Station residents who looked to her for guidance, died Thursday at St. Agnes HealthCare. She was 98 and died of apparent heart failure. Mrs. Parsons was considered a pioneer of the once-bustling Dundalk enclave that was home to hundreds of African-American steelworkers and their families. Family members said that besides owning the community's first coin-operated laundry and High's dairy store, she was the first woman in Turners Station to get a driver's license and own a car. She was said to have the first telephone, and opened her doors to others who wanted to use it. It seemed she knew everybody, and everyone knew her. "All the little kids on the street -- she knew who their parents were and their parents' parents," said her granddaughter, Angela Faidley of Essex.

Thomas Dickerson Dawes, a retired civil engineer and former chairman of the Baltimore County Human Relations Commission who touched off a controversy in 1970 when he investigated several incidents of racial unrest in southeastern Baltimore County, died Nov. 5 of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. Mr. Dawes died three days shy of his 85th birthday. Mr. Dawes was born in Baltimore and raised on a Falls Road farm that was purchased by his great-grandfather in 1859 and has remained in his family since that time.