Hosts love exchange students

By Margaret Foster
Posted on July 01, 2024

At work one day in 2022, Montgomery County Public School teacher Annette Watford got an email that changed her life. “Consider hosting a foreign exchange student,” the email read. “Students come from all over the world and are excited to become part of an American family, and you can make that happen.” Watford, who said that hosting an exchange student “was always in the... READ MORE

Summer camps for grownups

By Glenda C. Booth
Posted on June 03, 2024

Many people recall the ups and downs of summer camp as youngsters: campfire songs, leaky tents, latrines and s’mores. At today’s “adult camps” — whether at a campground, on a college campus or at a high-end ranch — you can revisit some of those experiences more comfortably. Every summer an estimated one million older campers spend a week or two away to take music lessons,... READ MORE

A passion for keeping healthy

By Robert Friedman
Posted on May 21, 2024

Quick: What’s Maryland’s official exercise? Columbia resident David R. Conway knows: It’s walking. Conway, 70, is the new volunteer president of AARP Maryland, which advocates for 850,000 members and their families. “We are very focused on walking,” he told the Beacon in a recent interview about his priorities there. And he said walking 30 minutes a day is the best way... READ MORE

State’s largest farmers market

By Margaret Foster
Posted on May 20, 2024

Every Sunday morning, an asphalt parking lot under the Jones Falls Expressway blooms with color. In the pre-dawn darkness, farmers arrive in their trucks, bringing fragrant fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers. Local artists and musicians trickle in. Their colorful creations brighten the urban canvas, and their music echoes off the overpass and cement pillars. The Baltimore Farmers’ ... READ MORE

Area farmers markets thrive

By Margaret Foster
Posted on May 06, 2024

Every Sunday morning in Bethesda, Maryland, a line forms in front of Bethesda Elementary School. People wait, chatting with others in line, their dogs on leashes and babies in strollers, until a man named Mitchell Berliner steps up on a bench and says, “Good morning, world’s greatest farmers market patrons! Today, we have strawberries, tomatoes and morels. Three, two, one,... READ MORE

Devoted to raising, racing pigeons

By Glenda C. Booth
Posted on April 22, 2024

When Beverly Gottlieb was growing up in Hanover, Maryland, other teenagers had to clean the house after school. She had to clean the pigeon coop. Her father taught her not only how to raise pigeons, but how to race them. “I was born into it,” said Gottlieb of the hobby. She still races pigeons today with the Greater Baltimore Pigeon Club. Pigeon racing is a sport — some say an... READ MORE

Documenting lost WWII stories 

By Glenda C. Booth
Posted on April 01, 2024

Many stories from World War II have been lost, many heroes forgotten. For instance, on a bombing raid in Japan, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Francis Stevenson took the seat of future U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson on the B-26 Wabash Cannonball when Johnson briefly deplaned. Johnson ended up on another bomber, while Stevenson’s bomber was hit, killing everyone on board. Johnson... READ MORE

The Bachelorettes of the DMV

By Laura Sturza
Posted on March 04, 2024

The hope that lasting love can happen later in life recently got a huge boost, thanks to Joan Vassos of Rockville and Nancy Hulkower of Alexandria. Both appeared on the first season of the popular ABC program “The Golden Bachelor,” which premiered last fall. The show is a spinoff of the reality TV shows “The Bachelor,” which premiered in 2002, and the 2003 series “The... READ MORE

United by Birmingham childhoods  

By Glenda C. Booth
Posted on January 29, 2024

When Freeman Hrabowski was 12 years old, in 1963, he was so inspired by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that he not only marched in the Children’s Crusade for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama, for three days, but he went to jail for five. When Hrabowski reached the steps of city hall, ardent segregationist and Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor spat in his face, picked him up and ... READ MORE

For Jayne Miller, the beat goes on

By Robert Friedman
Posted on January 16, 2024

She “retired” last year after 40 years in front of the WBAL-TV cameras, but award-winning investigative reporter Jayne Miller says she’s continuing her “conversation with people involved in the news” via her weekly radio broadcasts. Being in front of the mike rather than the TV cameras “isn’t really reporting as much as it is informing through conversation,” said the... READ MORE