Thursday, May 22, 2008

Rockville's Mayor for a Day

Ricky Allen, a fourth-grader at Beall Elementary School, served as Rockville's Mayor for a Day on Monday after winning an "If I Were Mayor, I Would . . . " essay contest. Ricky was one of 11 state winners chosen from more than 2,300 entries to the contest, sponsored by the Maryland Municipal League and the Maryland Mayors' Association.

Ricky performed several duties as temporary mayor, including tours of City Hall, the Gude Drive Maintenance Facility and Croydon Creek Nature Center. He took part in a police ride-along and had lunch with Mayor Susan Hoffmann. Ricky and local students who earned honorable mentions will attend the City Council's meeting June 9. For information on Mayor for a Day, call Brenda Bean at 240-314-8280.

Northwest High School will host its 2008 student art show from 7 to 9 p.m. next Thursday and Friday, featuring still-life paintings, ceramics, black-and-white photographs and digital art works. The free show will be held in the auditorium of the school's campus, at 13501 Richter Farm Rd. in Germantown. For information, call 301-601-4628.

American University's Washington College of Law awarded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project's annual Mary Beth Tinker Award last week to Sarah Boltuck, a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.

Boltuck launched last year's campaign to restore the right of Maryland 17-year-olds to vote in a primary election if they will be 18 by the date of the general election. The Maryland State Board of Elections, which had stopped this practice in 2006, restored it in December after Boltuck's appeal to state officials. Boltuck was also instrumental in the Maryland Court of Appeals' February decision to allow 17-year-olds to vote in nonpartisan primaries for county school board elections.

Mary Beth Tinker, who fought for students' free speech rights in the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines School, and state Sen. Jamin B. Raskin (D-Montgomery) , founder of the Marshall-Brennan Project, honored Boltuck at a May 14 ceremony.

Anna Lukacs, a senior at Albert Einstein High School and the county's Visual Art Center, is this year's winner of the Maryland 8th Congressional District's annual art competition, sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Her winning painting depicted several Maryland symbols, including the state flag, a stylized map of the Chesapeake Bay, black-eyed Susans and blue crabs.

Lukacs was chosen by a professional artists panel from more than 200 students representing 23 county public and private high schools. Jurors chose 80 entries for an exhibition, which is on display through May 30 at the Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike in Bethesda. For information, call 301-581-5200 or go to www.strathmore.org.

-- Compiled by SARAH MARSTON