Baltimore Sun Store

[Betty Morgan], an accomplished administrator who was a finalist to become Baltimore's superintendent, took over the 20,310- student district in July 2001. She found the once-sleepy county becoming increasingly suburbanized. New housing subdivisions and retail outlets were going up on rolling farmland. And Hagerstown's depressed downtown was showing signs of a renaissance, with new shops, offices and restaurants.

Among South High's 2005 graduates will be Kastine Dorsey, 17, who was failing school in Frederick before her family moved to Hagerstown last year. "I was hanging out with the wrong crowd" and cutting class, Dorsey said.

At South High, she was paired with a dropout-prevention worker whom Dorsey calls "my angel." Dorsey brought up her grades. She enrolled in a creative writing class and found an outlet for her emotions. On track to be the first of her relatives to finish high school, Dorsey has been accepted by Hagerstown's community college.