The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page B1

TUESDAY 02.20.2007 baltimoresun.com maryland SCHOOL LEADER STEPS DOWN REGION STUDENT, FRIEND KILLED A sophomore at the University of Maryland, College Park and a friend are killed in Arizona by a man who then kills himself. PG 2B DEADLY FORCE Baltimore County police said yesterday that officers were justified in three recent fatal shootings. PG 3B OBITUARY RAILROAD CLERK Charles Raymond "Goose" Mathews, who also was a decorated World War II veteran from South Baltimore, dies at 86. PG 4B Howard Community College's No. 2 will take over in June BY SANDY ALEXANDER SUN REPORTER After nearly nine years as president of Howard Community College a tenure marked by significant growth in student population, buildings and fundraising Mary Ellen Duncan an Condemn racist past, but confront the present nounced yesterday that she will step down in June.

The college's board of trustees has named Kate Hethe-rington, an HCC administrator since 1999 and the college's executive vice president, as Duncan's DUNCAN Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Gov. Martin O'Malley, his son William, George Washington re-enactor Jim Gibson and House Speaker Michael E. Busch look at the original document in the State House rotunda. PHOTOS BY BARBARA HADDOCK TAYLOR SUN PHOTOGRAPHER One of George Washington's most famous speeches makes its way back to Annapolis, its rightful home The return of history JEAN MARBELLA successor.

The board of trustees chose to forgo a nationwide search and instead focused on finding a candidate internally. In 1998, the trustees were looking for a new direction when they launched the national search that led to Duncan's hiring, said Patrick Huddie, the current board chairman. This time, "preserving our values and continuity were important to the board," he said. Hetherington was the preferred candidate throughout the process, which began with a plan for succession two years ago, Huddie said. "We are just delighted with her performance and her dedication to the institution." Several trustees said that they wanted to avoid the cost and disruption of a wider search and were eager to keep Hetherington, who was being sought by other colleges.

A graduate of the Community College of Philadelphia who went on to earn a doctorate from Widener University in Chester, Hetherington worked in several administrative positions at the Please see COLLEGE, 5B BY KELLY BREWINGTON SUN REPORTER More than 300 lawmakers, state officials and history buffs packed the cavernous State House rotunda last night to witness one of George Washington's most famous speeches one of the nation's most important documents return to its nehtfhl home VfLtsr? Just steps from the Old MyffL Senate Chamber in which Washineton deliv ered the speech more than 200 years ago, officials unveiled his hand ASSEMBLY written manuscript a fragile, yellowing slip of paper, covered on each side with Old World script and encased in protected glass. Gov. Martin O'Malley took part in the pageantry, which included musicians dressed in period costume and an actor portraying the nation's first president, whose 275th birthday (Feb. 22) was being officially observed. 'To Washington, the ultimate authority in government had to be the will of the people as expressed through their representatives, no matter how rowdy, wrong and impulsive those representatives from time to time might become," O'Malley told the crowd, evoking a few chuckles.

Jim Gibson, dressed as George Washington, reads Washington's military resignation speech in Annapolis. It was originally delivered Dec. 23, 1783. Fire engulfs stores amid standoff Gunman believed dead in Frederick blaze Washington's speech, delivered Dec. 23, 1783, was as eloquent as it was brief, a humble farewell from a war hero who easily could have become king.

Instead, the commander-in-chief of the Continen-Please see WASHINGTON, 6B "It is that priceless link on paper to the mind of the man who believed that civilian government and leadership was the only answer to the future of the Republic," said State Archivist Edward C. Papenfuse. O'Malley reaches out to blacks FAR BE IT FROM ME TO dispute so great an American observer as Faulkner, but sometimes the past really is past. Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, The Sun reported on Sunday, is thinking of creating a "cold case" squad that would reopen unsolved racial crimes from the civil rights era.

The point would be to apply modern forensics, as well as our more enlightened sensibilities, to right the wrongs of 40-some years ago sort of a CSI: Mississippi Burning, I suppose. In recent years, other states have managed to bring long-delayed justice to bear on some of the most heinous fire-bombings and murders from the civil rights era. But, while surely Maryland has some old civil rights business to take care of as well, I'm not sure how far a redress of the past will go in the very real present. Sometimes I think it's easier for us to look to the past because the villains were so much clearer then the hooded Ku Klux Klan members, the lynch mobs, the police with their snarling dogs and fire hoses, the officials who looked the other way. Today that clarity is often missing.

When you look at what plagues African-Americans as a group the higher poverty, dropout and incarceration rates, for example, or the number of children growing up in single-parent homes, or the lingering educational and employment lags, it's harder to point to a villain. Because there is no single one but a multiplicity of them, and they're societal problems, not necessarily individuals walking around in hooded robes. Take, to pick just one example, the shrinking, yet persistent gap in academic performance: The Sun reported last year that the pass rate for African-American students in the state's high school algebra proficiency test rose from 35 percent to 52 percent, but that still lagged behind the 88 percent rate of white students. So who is to blame for that? Their teachers? Their parents? The school board? The students themselves? Or the ever-popular It's not easy to point to a single culprit, especially one who can be arrested and tried and sen-Please see MARBELLA, 5B BY ARIN GENCER AND LAURA MCCANDLISH SUN REPORTERS FREDERICK A 29-year-old gunman was believed to have perished yesterday in a fire that broke out in a liquor store during his standoff with police and engulfed a Frederick shopping complex. The gunman, identified by police as James C.

Douglas of Frederick, was known to local law enforcement officers and had spoken with police by telephone before the fire broke out in Jim's Liquors and spread to eight other businesses in Antietam Village Center on Opossumtown Pike. Police said Douglas entered the liquor store and, at gunpoint, ordered the owner to get out. The owner called police from a neighboring store about 12:30 p.m. The gunman fired at least two shots at police during the standoff, according to Lt. Thomas Chase, a spokesman for the Frederick Police Department.

Police smelled something burning as they tried to negotiate with the suspect, partially by telephone, and soon a fire was raging, Chase said. Police heard explosions they assumed to be bottles of liquor combusting in the blaze, Chase said. No one else was inside the store, which was surrounded by police, Chase said. As the fire spread, police evacuated 10 to 15 people from neighboring stores. Please see FREDERICK, 6B Some critics say race relations in Democratic Party still a problem BY ANDREW A.

GREEN SUN REPORTER BOWIE At a diversity forum yesterday at Bowie State University, Gov. Martin O'Malley told an audience that blacks and whites alike share the responsibility to ensure racial justice and opportunity for all. "I grew up in a household where the names King and Kennedy were revered not so much for what they did in their lives but for the needful things they gave their lives to pursue," O'Malley said, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King President John F. Kennedy and Sen.

Robert F. Kennedy. "Our challenges may change," he added at the Black History Month event, "but our continued pursuit of that needful thing, call it freedom, call it justice, does not." O'Malley won election last year at a time when many black leaders said they were tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic Party. Since taking office, he has taken steps to convince them he won't. He has repeatedly emphasized the need Please see O'MALLEY, 6B Gov.

Martin O'Malley enjoys a light moment during his remarks at a diversity forum at Bowie State University. O'Malley has been at pains to express his administration's sensitivity to the concerns of minorities. JED KIRSCHBAUM SUN PHOTOGRAPHER WATCH 3 LOTTERY 3B OBITUARIES 4B WEATHER 6B CRIME.