Around Maryland

The state of Maryland intends to hand Baltimore’s State Center Complex to the city for future redevelopment, Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford announced Wednesday in Annapolis. “Once we get the agencies out of State Center, it is our intent to turn that property over … to the City of Baltimore so that the citizens and their elected representatives can determine the best use for that site,” Rutherford said at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting.

Montgomery County, Maryland, Executive Marc Elrich is hoping that the availability of the latest versions of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will encourage residents to get their boosters against the coronavirus. Since the Food and Drug Administration announced it has authorized the use of the bivalent vaccines, which defends against more than one strain of the coronavirus, the county has requested 1,000 of the new vaccines.

Michael E. Hickey of Columbia, Maryland, died on August 28, 2022, at age 84. Born 1938 in Iron Mountain, Michigan, his family moved to Walla Walla, Washington, in 1942 where he grew up. He was an Eagle Scout who joined the Marines following high school graduation. Following his honorable discharge from the Corps he completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington, taught high school English for two years and then returned to the U of W, completing his master’s and then Ph.D. with highest honors in 1969. He was then recruited to work as the Special Assistant to the Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools where he led the team that successfully desegregated the schools voluntarily and, at the age of 34, he was named the system’s Deputy Superintendent.

When organizers outlined the scope of the Maryland Cycling Classic in Baltimore, one called it “the Preakness on wheels.” That might be an apt description if the Preakness were the only portion of horse racing’s Triple Crown held in the United States, said Joe Traill, owner of Joe’s Bike Shop in Mount Washington and Fells Point. “It would be like getting a Formula One race here,” Traill said. “This is rare for anywhere in the United States, let alone Baltimore. Some people have worked really hard to get this done. … I hope people in Baltimore realize what a huge deal this is. People are going to come to watch this race, and it’s not just Baltimoreans.”

In this week’s peek into Baltimore arts, we chat up a Baltimore-born comic who is hoping to move on to the finals of “America’s Got Talent”, learn how line dancing saved a Baltimorean’s life and go behind-the-scenes of a film set in Charm City. The audience and judges gave comedian Mike E. Winfield a standing ovation after his first performance on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” in late May. “They were literally chanting my name,” the Baltimore-born comic said. “It was more like an out of body experience… When I walked back, Terry Crews [the show’s host] was like ‘Do you feel it? Do you feel your life changing at this very moment?’ I was so struck by everything happening I was like, ‘I don’t know.’”

Car drop-off lines stretched out and around school parking lots, droves of students stepped off yellow buses and classmates greeted themselves with hugs on the first day of classes in Baltimore City and Baltimore County on Monday. The smiling faces of students, teachers and staff reflected the joy of being back at school, with fewer of the masks, protocols and fears that marked the first two years of the pandemic. Less visible were some of the concerns that many share about teacher vacancies and bus driver shortages.

Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland will end its indoor mask mandate next week, CEO Monica Goldson said in a note to the school community. In a newsletter highlighting moments from the first day of school across the county, Maryland’s second-largest school system said it plans to implement a mask-optional policy beginning Sept. 6.