Elizabeth Sullivan was the first woman to cross the finish line of the Army Ten-Miler in October, with a time of 56 minutes, 58 seconds. “There was a mixture of exhaustion and kind of relief to be done running, but also excitement because I felt like I had pushed myself really hard and ran faster than I thought I was able to,” says Sullivan, 24, who lives in Bethesda. The Washington, D.C., road race had about 8,000 female runners this past fall. Sullivan competed in track and cross-country at her Rhode Island high school and ran for four years at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Now a medical student at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, she squeezes in workouts whenever she can, logging about 40 miles a week. “I love challenging myself and continuing to set goals with running,” she says.
A podcast created by two juniors at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring was selected in September as a finalist among nearly 2,000 entries in NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge. Lila Shaw, 16, of Takoma Park, and Riley MacArthur, 16, of Rockville, submitted Paper Dolls, a podcast about fashion and self-expression that they produced in their journalism class. It was the perfect excuse to approach students and interview them about their cool styles, Lila says. “We looked for anybody who had seemed to have put thought and effort into their clothing as a way of showing us their personality,” Riley says. NPR’s Tamika Smith interviewed Lila and Riley about the experience for a story that aired on WAMU in the fall. Listen to the 10 high school finalists at npr.org/2024/08/30/g-s1-19902/student-podcast-challenge-2024-finalists.
When Patricia McGann was principal at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School in Bethesda from 2005 to 2018, she wrote weekly notes to families about parenting issues. “I saw how much parents needed to be encouraged … to trust themselves,” says McGann, 72, who lives in Bethesda and has five kids and 15 grandkids. In retirement, she sorted through the notes she’d saved to write Steadfast Parenting: How to Raise Children of Character (Rowman & Littlefield, August 2024). Too often, parents feel pressure for their kids to be on the best team or get the best grades, McGann says, while it’s better to focus on the process and for parents to create a loving relationship with their child. Her message to parents: “You can do this if you just stop worrying about what everyone else is doing.”
For more than 30 years, Chevy Chase’s Christy Bowe has been working as a news photographer covering Capitol Hill and the White House, chronicling major events and capturing intimate moments along the way. In her book History in the Making: A Focus on Five U.S. Presidents (Brown Books Publishing Group, November 2024), Bowe shares her photos along with her impressions on covering Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. She wrote about her career as a photojournalist in her 2021 book, Eyes That Speak: One Woman News Photographer’s Journey With History Makers (SheaDean Publishing). “Because of this contentious couple of years we’ve had in this election cycle specifically, we kind of lost sight of the human side of the people that sit in the Oval Office,” says Bowe, 69. “With the pictures, I’m showing the emotions that the men in the office display.”
After Adam Zuckerman’s dad died in 2023, he says he helped his mom with the estate transition and then wanted to share his experience with others. “I ended up making a website. I thought it would just be a few blog posts,” says the 44-year-old attorney and entrepreneur who has an MBA and lives in Potomac. “The next thing I knew, my inbox was full. … We were building out a company to help people across the country.” Zuckerman founded his company, Buried in Work, in November 2023 and offers some free resources (guides, directories, checklists) and products for sale (card games to prompt meaningful stories or conversations about end-of-life wishes), in addition to services such as workshops and individual consulting. Beginning in September, he started weekly podcasts with guests discussing everything from advanced directives to hospice care to hiring a “coffin confessor” to speak at your funeral.
Adam Longo, a TV journalist with local roots, recently took a new job with 7News (WJLA-TV), co-anchoring the weekday morning news from 4:30 to 7 a.m. It’s a change in schedule for the North Potomac resident who came from CBS affiliate WUSA9, where he worked afternoons and evenings. “The alarm clock goes off in the morning [at 2 a.m.] and it’s pretty hurtful for the first five minutes, and then you get into it,” says the University of Maryland graduate who grew up in Stafford County, Virginia. “It’s a different feeling than working the night shift, [when] the crescendo and energy sort of builds,” Longo says. “When you’re doing a morning show, you come in and hit the ground running.” With his afternoons free now, Longo says he enjoys working out (he’s a triathlete and marathoner) and spending more time with his three kids, ages 10, 12 and 14.
A North Bethesda couple has opened a mobile barbershop that allows clients to make appointments for any time of day or night. After cutting hair in various shops, Matthew Diggs, 34, opened The Showroom with his wife, Amye Diggs, 29, who helps manage the business. The pair bought a 1969 camper and transformed it into a barbershop that can be taken to clients upon request. It’s convenient for people who work odd hours or want some privacy when they get their hair cut, says Amye, a 2013 graduate of Richard Montgomery High School. (Matthew graduated from Damascus High School in 2008.) They book special events and weddings, but also at times have taken The Showroom to homeless shelters and job fairs where they provide free services for the community.
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This appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
