ABCDE METRO monday, september 20, 2010 POSTLOCAL.com 65, 9 a.m. 75, noon 77, 5 p.m. 68, 9 p.m.


Obituaries John C. Freeborn, 90, a Royal Air Force fighter pilot, was one of the most highly decorated British airmen of World War II despite a rocky beginning in 1939. B4


The Daily Gripe Report an issue — big or small — that your


government should fix. Go ahead, vent. We’ll follow up. PostLocal.com.


TRANSPORTATION


Going tow-to-tow Martena Clinton drove to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner Saturday and parked in a legal spot. The Secret Service towed her car, and then it got lost in the shuffle. A1


A surrogate family of teachers, social workers and counselors helps a teen thrive after homelessness, hunger, depression and a torturous journey from Guatemala to the Washington suburbs.


B DC MD VA S


JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON


Dream a little dream A visit from the Fairy Groutmother, even in one’s dreams, is an exciting development for a homeowner who’s been having some issues with his bathroom sink. She’s the best kind of wonder woman. B3


Fenty and Gray vow smooth transition


DEFICIT LOOMS AS MAJOR ISSUE


D.C. mayor, council chief plan to meet this week


by Tim Craig and Mike DeBonis


Two days after he won the Democratic nomination for mayor, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and the man he will probably be replacing, Adrian M. Fenty, hugged at a party unity breakfast and raised their hands in a show of soli- darity. Fenty pledged his support for Gray at


PHOTOS BY XIAOMEI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST


“I felt school was my home,” says Onelio Mencho-Aguilar, 18, who graduated from T.C. Williams High School with a 3.6 grade-point average and faculty award for his fortitude and “strong desire to achieve.” Now he is a full-time student with a $3,000 scholarship at Northern Virginia Community College.


by Michael Alison Chandler


and a grown man’s burdens. He had survived homelessness, hun-


O


ger and depression in a torturous jour- ney from the Guatemalan highlands, sneaking across the border in Arizona, roaming the streets of Los Angeles and landing in the Washington suburbs. There, he reunited with his father, whom he had not heard from in a decade — only to be abandoned by him two years later, left to survive on his own. Many students who face smaller trou- bles drop out of school. But Mencho-Aguilar graduated in


June from T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria with a 3.6 grade-point aver- age and a faculty award for his fortitude and “strong desire to achieve.” Now he is a full-time student with a $3,000 schol- arship at Northern Virginia Community College.


“I compare him to Oliver Twist. He has been through some incredible obstacles,” said Patricia Gordon, an English teacher for nonnative speakers at T.C. Williams. “He is the kind of student every teacher wishes they had a room full of.” Many teenagers struggle to feel moti-


vated at school. For those who trail aca- demically or don’t speak fluent English, the challenges can be overwhelming.


Mencho-Aguilar returns to T.C. Williams to visit nurse Nancy Runton. When he was a student there, she ensured he had groceries and gifts to open on his birthday.


nelio Mencho-Aguilar entered high school in Northern Virginia at 14 with a sixth-grade education


An ‘Oliver Twist’ overcomes the odds


 Gray should keep his hands off the Bedford team, Jay Mathews writes. B2


And for immigrants who are focused on survival, school seems like a luxury. Many are reluctant to ask for help. Mencho-Aguilar, who came to the


United States alone, was especially vul- nerable. But rather than checking out, he knitted together a surrogate family of teachers, social workers and counselors. “Maybe it was because I felt safe


there,” said Mencho-Aguilar, a lanky 18- year-old with a soft voice. School offered things he did not have “in real life,” he said, including meals he did not have to pay for and adults he could count on. “I felt school was my home.” For many students at T.C. Williams, ties to the classroom are far more fragile: One in three Hispanic students and one in four African Americans do not gradu- ate within four years. Those statistics fit the profile of many schools with high numbers of disadvantaged students. T.C. Williams, with more than 2,900 students on two campuses, is one of Vir- ginia’s largest high schools. But this year, with help from a federal turnaround grant, administrators are working to make it seem more intimate: reducing caseloads for guidance counselors, hir- ing more English and math teachers, and


student continued on B2 Civil rights pioneer hailed as leading ‘scholar-activist’


Ronald W. Walters helped stage lesser-known sit-in in Wichita in 1958


by Ruben Castaneda


Nearly two years before the famous sit- ins to protest segregation at lunch count- ers in Greensboro, N.C., Ronald W. Wal- ters and a cousin organized sit-in pro- tests of a drugstore lunch counter in his home town of Wichita. Many people don’t know about the 1958 Wichita protests, which ended when the store owner agreed to serve black diners. But to the lions of the civil rights movement who gathered Sunday in Cramton Auditorium at Howard Uni- versity to honor Walters, his place in the pantheon of movement giants is secure. “Two years before Greensboro,” the


Rev. Jesse Jackson said. “He was a philos- opher-king. Fifty-two years of activism. He never stopped.” “He was the preeminent scholar-activ-


ist,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said. Jackson and Sharpton were among the


more than 700 people who attended a memorial service for Walters, who died Sept. 10 of cancer at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He was 72. Walters was one of the country’s lead- ing scholars of the politics of race, as well as a well-known civil rights activist, aca- demic, political analyst and author. The service was held at the university


that Walters joined in the early 1970s as a member of the faculty. He became chair- man of the political science department and was an astute observer of national and local politics. In 1996, Walters moved to the Univer-


sity of Maryland, where he directed the African American Leadership Institute. Throughout Walters’s career in the Washington area, journalists often went to him for analyses and quoted him on political campaigns in the District and suburban Maryland. Walters was plan- ning to return to Howard this fall. Walters wrote or co-wrote eight books.


His 2003 book, “White Nationalism, Black Interests: Conservative Public Pol- icy and the Black Community,” predicted the resurgence of a white conservative


walters continued on B3 NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST


The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Patricia Turner Walters, right, Ronald W. Walters’s widow, pray before a memorial service for Walters at Howard University.


the event Thursday, and both men said they will work together to ensure a smooth transition after an election that exposed sharp differences among the city’s voters on what they want from their government. On Tuesday, the council is to return from a two-month recess. Fenty will re- main in office until Jan. 2, and many ex- pect three months of unease at the John A. Wilson Building as Gray begins plan- ning his administration. Fenty and Gray will have to work to-


gether to address a midyear budget def- icit that some predict could approach $100 million. The men, who haven’t had a face-to-face meeting for nearly a year, plan to sit down together this week. They must continue to run a city-owned hospi- tal and determine the fate of dozens of appointees to boards and commissions who have not been confirmed. “This will require a great deal of pa- tience and goodwill on all sides,” said Da- vid A. Catania (I-At Large), who has been on the council since 1997. In the past, the lame-duck period has been an opportunity for mischief-mak- ing by the outgoing mayoral administra- tions, as they have pushed through last-


transition continued on B4


New lineup to tackle crime in


Pr. George’s New state’s attorney, sheriff will face challenges in crime-plagued county


by Fredrick Kunkle


Angela Alsobrooks, who is almost cer- tain to be the next state’s attorney in Prince George’s County, said her most ambitious goal as the county’s top law- enforcement official would be to repli- cate a high-profile California program designed to break the cycle of crime. She also pledged to actively court community involvement. “We need their engagement,” Also- brooks said. In the sheriff ’s race, former county Po-


lice Chief Melvin C. High, who has what appears to be an insurmountable lead over the closest candidate as final pri- mary votes are being tallied, said he would insist on the highest standards of training for his staff and deputies and on greater transparency for the public. “The public has a right to know what


we’re doing and what we’re about,” High said Friday.


Both presumptive winners in last Tuesday’s primary face considerable


crime continued on B4


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