Ted Alexander

TED ALEXANDER Chief historian of the Antietam National Battlefield is a highly sought after speaker and tour guide. He has written extensively on the Gettysburg campaign. His books include Southern Revenge & Maryland Civilians in the Antietam campaign. He has also authored several General’s Tours for Blue & Gray Magazine. He is an expert on cavalry operations conducted during the Gettysburg campaign.

 

Major (Retired) T. Kevin Griffin, MA

A quarter century was spent by Kevin commanding some thousand fighting men of the United States Marine Corps, Navy and Army as well as the Army National Guard and fighting men and women of the United States Army Reserve; driven from an early age by the coach lamp glow of history, beginning in his uncle’s library in the Civil War Centennial. He told a history teacher in high school who tried to persuade him to teach history that as a Marine he would make history. In 1968, the same year he walked the battlefield at Waterloo, he worked in a Democratic United States Senator’s re-election campaign. Seven years later he was a Marine intelligence officer in Saigon shortly before it fell to the North Vietnamese. Like the 1860s; he saw the Democratic Party come apart and a south fall.

In his days as a Marine he was often stationed at Quantico, Virginia spending weekends walking the streets and ridges of Harper’s Ferry. He later wrote a masters thesis on the 1st Irish, 35th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, following a few of the soldiers beyond the western campaigns of the Civil War to the Fenian Invasion of Canada in 1866. He also produced one man performances of several Civil War Irish Catholic Chaplains and the antebellum statesman the “Little Giant” Senator Stephen A. Douglas. More recently he has portrayed John Brown and other figures of the “Bleeding Kansas” era.

He often uses two statements of history. Harry Truman’s “The only thing we don’t know is the history we haven’t read,” And Thomas Jefferson’s haunting “….the preponderance of history is not but the story of bad governments…”

JAMES S. DYSON, ESQUIRE

EDUCATION:

J.D., Howard University School of Law
Washington, D.C., 5/73
Member of Maryland Bar

B.A., Saint Paul’s College
Lawrenceville, Va5/65

COMMISSIONS:

Appointed to The Advisory Board for The University of Maryland Extension Service (1976).

Appointed to the State of Maryland Department of Licensing and Regulations as a State Commissioner by Governor Blair Lee (1978).

Appointed to The U.S. Department of Commerce National Laboratory Accreditation Committee (1979).

Appointed to The Montgomery County, Maryland, County Ethnic Affairs Advisory Committee (1988).

Appointed to the Juvenile Court Committee, Montgomery County, MD. (1999).

Past Legal Adviser Montgomery County, Maryland, Rainbow Coalition.

Past General Council National Black Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counsel.

Past Member Board of Directors National Black Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counsel.

Judge Durke G. Thompson

Associate Judge, The Circuit Court of Maryland
Maryland State Bar Association, 1968 – present

Board of Governors, 1979 – 1981
Executive Committee 1979, 1986 – 1988
Judicial Appointments Committee 1976 – 1990
Committee on Laws, 1989 – 1992 Worked to obtain responsible state legislation
Special Committee to Celebrate the Bicentennial of the Bill or Rights, Chair 1991
Editorial Advisory Board, Maryland Lawyer, 1996
Budget and Finance Committee, 1986 – 1989 Assisted in setting financial policy
Professionalism Program, Faculty 1992

Montgomery County Bar Association 1968 – present

President, 1985 – 1986
Executive Committee, 1975 – 1978, 1982 – 1986
Secretary, 1973 – 1974
Nomination and Elections Committee, Chair 1991
Special Committee of the U.S. Federal District Court, 1986 – 1988
Administration of Justice Committee, Chair 1982 – 1983
Arbitration Committee, Chair 1981
Constitution Revision Committee, Chair 1975
Professionalism Program, Designated Conciliator 1992 – 1994

Edwin Cole Bearss

Todd Bolton

South T Lynn

Born in Washington, DC in 1927, son of David Lynn, the 7th Architect of the US Capitol, grandson of the twice serving Clerk of the House of Representatives and former Congressman South Trimble of Kentucky. “Captain” Lynn is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and Public Administration, 1952. “Captain” Lynn served in the US Navy in World War II. Mr. Lynn is a member of The Maryland Society of the Cincinnati, the American Legion, Masonic Order and a member of The Sons of Confederate Veterans. Mr. Lynn currently operates Universal Floors, Inc., a hardwood flooring business in Washington, D.C., which he founded in 1953.

Long time friend Harold Keshishian and he purchased the Kennedy Farmhouse with private funds in 1972.

 

Thomas B. Riford

Thomas B. Riford is the Vice President of Funds Development for the Homewood Retirement Centers, and he heads up the Homewood Foundation. He is the Past-President and CEO of the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau and happily touts the area’s unique offerings—including five national parks, eight state parks, over 30 museums, and a number-one-shopping-destination ranking in Maryland. A graduate of Cornell University, decorated Marine Corps veteran, winner of the Chamber of Commerce 2004 Business Volunteer of the Year Award, and 1989 CBS Radio News Reporter of the Year, Riford is also a thrill-seeker. In 1994, this former professional skier and racer set a world record for most vertical feet skied in a four-hour period. In 2009, Tom Riford accepted, on behalf of the Hagerstown-Washington County CVB, the Maryland Cultural Heritage Tourism Award from Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. The award recognized the CVB’s work, along with a committee of tourism professionals and historians from four states, done in connection with the 150th Anniversary of John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry. In 2013, he also was awarded the Washington County John Frye Historical Preservation Award for Advocacy.  Riford is a board member of the Maryland Film Industry Coalition, the Maryland Humanities Council, and the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area. Riford is the President of the Board of Directors of the Discovery Station museum in Hagerstown, and the President of the Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown. Riford also serves on the boards of the Red Cross, Breast Cancer Awareness of the Cumberland Valley, and other non-profits.