Tag Archives: Montgomery County

News, Politics, Government

War veteran allegedly kills teenaged Army Reserves recruit, himself

Leave a comment

Authorities say they are investigating what led a war veteran to fatally shoot a teenaged girl who he had signed up for the Army Reserves before killing himself.

31-year-old Staff Sgt. Adam Arndt was found dead of a gunshot wound Monday morning inside his Germantown, Md., home, along with 17-year-old Michelle Miller, a senior at Rockville High School.

Police believe Arndt fatally shot Miller, who was signed up to enter the Army Reserves after graduation, before killing himself. A handgun was found at the home, police said.

Miller’s father, Kevin Miller, told The Associated Press on Monday night that he had not met Arndt but that his daughter had seemed “a little smitten with this guy.” He said she met him about four or five months ago.

Kevin Miller said his daughter left their Rockville home Sunday night, saying somebody in her platoon was suicidal. He said she stopped responding to his calls and text messages.

MyFoxDC.com reports friends and family members of Miller gathered at her high school Tuesday to remember her. Friends described her as strong, fun-loving and driven at the vigil.

Army recruiters are barred from fraternizing with recruits, a restriction that includes dating, inviting recruits to their homes or having any kind of personal relationship that would place undue influence on a recruit, said Kathleen Welker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command.

Arndt, a native of Manitowoc, Wis., joined the Army in October 2003. He was deployed to Turkey from September 2009 to September 2010, and his decorations include a medal for service in the global war on terrorism. He has also served in Korea and Germany, according to personnel records released by the Army.

He was working as a human resources specialist before he was detailed in January 2011 to the recruiting office in Columbia, Md., Welker said. Such assignments typically last three years, after which soldiers can decide whether to become permanent recruiters or return to their previous occupations.

His duties would have included visiting schools, Welker said, although it was not clear Tuesday whether he had visited Rockville High School.

The investigation remains active and is focused on “determining how these two people died,” said Capt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery County police spokesman.

Dana Tofig, a county schools spokesman, said military recruiters routinely visit the county’s schools. The school system’s focus, he said, was helping those who knew Miller.

Grief counselors were visiting her classmates on Tuesday.

Kevin Miller said his daughter was excited to join the military and planned to use it to finance her college education.

“She had her life taken away from her on one fell swoop,” he said.

Click for more from MyFoxDC.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

News, Politics, Government

School rings bought in Vietnam remain mysteries

Leave a comment

They could have been lost forever, long-forgotten mementoes from home perhaps worn on a finger or carried in a pocket for good luck.

Somehow, the two 1970s-era high school rings found their way into the hands of jewelry merchants in Vietnam. Now, they are waiting in Kentucky for their original owners.

“My first thought that crossed my mind was, ‘You know, this ring might have come off a dead American soldier.’ That’s the first thing I thought about,” said Dan Cherry, a retired Air Force brigadier general who has one of the rings at his home in Bowling Green.

“You stop and think all the places this ring has been? From the beginning? It’s amazing.”

The other ring has been sitting on the desk of Donna McGuire, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County school system, for more than a year.

McGuire recently posted a note on the system’s Facebook page in search of the owner of the 1970 Montgomery County High School ring. The note attracted attention from local media outlets, but no clues.

That ring was languishing in a Vietnam store when a U.S. contractor working in Thai Binh City spotted it in February 2012.

Rick Dunn of Easton, Penn., haggled a bit with the merchant, then bought it for about $30.

“For me, this is only about returning the ring to its owner especially if it was tied to the war back in the early ’70s,” he wrote in an email to The Associated Press earlier this week.

The silver-toned ring with a red stone sported an image of an Indian on the side — the mascot at Montgomery County High.

“One thing you will say when you finish this is that you don’t get this kind of email every day,” Dunn wrote in an email that month McGuire, telling her of his discovery.

Soon after, Dunn mailed the ring to McGuire. It still sits on her desk in Mount Sterling, Ky. It has no identifying marks such as initials, but an image of an eagle can be seen through the stone.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

News, Politics, Government

Former NBA star has new job as crossing guard

Leave a comment

Former NBA star Adrian Dantley spent years guarding opponents on the court. Now he’s guarding schoolchildren as they cross the street.

Radio station WTOP (http://bit.ly/YlNvyo) reports that Dantley, a hall-of-famer and former star for the Utah Jazz and Detroit Pistons, started working as a crossing guard in September. He works an hour a day at Eastern Middle School and New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md.

Ths 6-foot-5 Dantley grew up in the area and says he took the job for the health care benefits and to have something to do. Montgomery County civil service records show he gets paid $14,685.50 a year. Dantley says he doesn’t need the money.

He says he enjoys giving the young children high fives and encouragement.

___

Information from: WTOP-FM, http://www.wtop.com

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Articles of Interest

Student Suspended For Pop-Tart Gun, Josh Welch, Files Appeal With Maryland County School System

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

An attorney for an Anne Arundel County 7-year-old suspended from school for nibbling a pastry into the shape of a pistol has filed an appeal with the county school system to have the suspension overturned and the student’s record expunged, saying he will “go all the way to the Maryland Court of Appeals” if needed to pursue the case.

“This kid was just as imaginative and is just as adventurous as Steve Jobs was at the age of 7,” said Robin Ficker, a Montgomery County who has been hired by the student’s father, J.B. Welch, to represent the family in the appeal.

“It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious as it being on his record.”

Read More…
More on Maryland

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Articles of Interest

Thomas Perez, Labor Secretary Nominee, Faces GOP Scrutiny

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

By Roberta Rampton and Rachelle Younglai
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, as labor secretary – a job that would give him a key role in the administration’s efforts to raise the minimum wage and reform immigration laws.
Perez, 51, is the only Latino nominated to Obama‘s second-term Cabinet so far. He is expected to face opposition from some Republican senators who say he has been too aggressive on certain immigration issues and too political.
Obama described Perez’s career as exemplifying the American success story, noting Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, helped pay for college by working as a garbage collector and in a warehouse.
“If you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is – you can make it if you try,” Obama said. “Tom’s made protecting that promise for everybody the cause of his life.”
Perez has worked on civil rights issues in a number of government positions, including as labor secretary for the Maryland state government, and as an elected council member for the Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland.
He also spent time working as a special counsel to the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy on civil rights, including immigration reform issues.
Obama urged the Senate to confirm Perez quickly. He said he would be an integral part of his economic team as the administration works with Congress to try to overhaul immigration laws to give the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
Obama also has proposed increasing the minimum wage to $9 per hour from its current level of $7.25, an initiative that the Labor Department has been promoting around the country.
Perez’s nomination was championed by Hispanic groups, which have pushed for more representation in the Cabinet. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

History

Are “mid-century modern" buildings worth preserving?

Leave a comment

By hnn

Even with its glistening emerald-green glass, the boxy 1960s-era Zalco Building in downtown Silver Spring is hardly noticed by many passersby, let alone thought of as a historic structure.

The very idea makes John Cranston, the building’s engineer, chuckle. “I don’t think George Washington slept here or anything,” he said.

But to Clare Lise Kelly, a historic-preservation planner for Montgomery County, and to other architectural experts, the office building at Georgia Avenue and Cameron Street is a shining example of International style. It’s time, they say, for it and other “mid-century modern” buildings and homes — those with sleek, boxy designs from the 1950s and 1960s — to be considered for historic preservation….

Source:
WaPo

Source URL:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/montgomerys-mad-men-modern-buildings–are-they-worth-protecting/2013/02/28/61a57372-7b90-11e2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_story.html

Date:
2-28-13

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University

News, Politics, Government

Texas couple with 2 kids on old bus makes progress

Leave a comment

Home for a Southeast Texas family is still an old school bus with no engine and no front wheels.

But child welfare officials are delighted with the commitment the parents have shown since their two young kids were discovered living there virtually unsupervised almost a year ago while their father and mother were in federal prison.

Child Protective Services officials are expected to recommend a judge dismiss the welfare agency’s case against Mark and Sherrie Shorten in court Tuesday, allowing the couple to regain full custody of their 12-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son.

“That’s what I’ve been targeting all along,” Mark Shorten said.

The children are in school and the parents have complied with CPS care plans, evaluations and therapy, agency spokeswoman Gwen Carter said.

“They’re doing really well and the family is doing really well,” she said. “The staff is very proud of them.”

Last March, a postal worker, after repeatedly spotting two disheveled children in the Montgomery County neighborhood about 35 miles northeast of Houston, became concerned and notified authorities. Welfare officials quickly arrived and placed the kids in foster care while media coverage led with images of the outwardly dilapidated bus on a trash-littered lot.

Carter said officials are accustomed to poor families living in tough conditions and while it’s not illegal to live in a bus, “sadly, that was the sensational part, the condition of their living environment and they were left there all day.”

“Let’s be blunt,” Mark Shorten said. “Once I saw pictures on the news and read the full story, I was glad somebody pulled my children out of that mess. Both of them suffered through that mess.”

At the time, Shorten and his wife were in separate federal prisons both serving 18 months for convictions for conspiracy to embezzle money from victims of Hurricane Ike, which struck in 2008. They had arranged for their children to be supervised by an aunt, who told authorities she became overwhelmed between working 12-hour days and trying to care for them.

“There was a lot of emotional and mental anguish put on the kids,” said Sherrie Shorten, who was released from prison several weeks after the children were removed. “And that’s what we were upset about.”

Her husband was released in July and their children were returned to them, under CPS supervision, in September.

“My main focus when I got home was getting my kids back home,” Mark Shorten said. “And I did that. Life’s as good as it’s going to get at the moment but we’re trying to make it better.”

Despite its worn appearance, the bus inside had been renovated, furnished, had hot and cold water and a bathroom, and was air-conditioned. The family moved it from Louisiana after their home there was flooded from Hurricane Ike. It was intended as a temporary home until they could build on the lot, where the trash has been cleared and items outside, like a lumber pile, are neatly stacked.

“We’d still like to (build), but we have some restrictions,” said Sherrie Shorten, who with her husband is on supervised federal release for three years and also looking at more than $100,000 in court-ordered restitution. “We have a lot of issues rebuilding our lives and getting back on track.”

Mark Shorten maintains neither he nor his wife, an accountant, were guilty.

“I don’t want to sound like somebody who is bitter and mad, because I’m not,” he said. “We’re trying to move forward.”

___

Online

http://www.theschoolbusfamily.com

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

News, Politics, Government

Bang! You're suspended: Maryland children punished for making gun gestures

Leave a comment

Two 6-year-old boys from Maryland were suspended from their school for making gun gestures during a harmless game of pretend, leaving parents outraged.

Officials at a Talbot County Elementary School disciplined the boys after they were playing a game of cops and robbers according to Baltimore station WJZ-TV. It was the second such incident in the state in recent weeks.

“It’s ridiculous.” Julia Merchant, mother of one of the children said to the channel.

Last month, 6-year-old Rodney Lynch was suspended from his Montgomery County school for making the same gesture twice.

“Just pointing your fingers like this, and then she did the ‘pow’ sound, and I just went like that and then I got sent to the office again,” the boy told WJZ-TV at the time.

“They’re saying he threatened a student, threatened to shoot a student,” the boy’s father, Rodney Lynch Sr. said after the suspension. “He was playing.”

A child psychologist told WJZ-TV that the minds of most 6-year-olds are not developed enough to understand why adults might be sensitive to the gesture.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News