Christine Amelia Ruffin Waller, who died of lung cancer Saturday at home in Richmond, was born 82 years ago in Reedville, one of three children of a minister-educator and his wife. Growing up near the water, she graduated in 1942 from Julius Rosenwald High School, where her father was principal. African-Americans in the area raised more than $7,000 to build the school, which opened as Northumberland County Training School, seven years before her birth. With additional funding from the Rosenwald Fund, created by Sears, Roebuck & Co. Chairman Julius Rosenwald to finance building of rural Southern schools for blacks, it became, in 1932, one of 308 Rosenwald schools in Virginia and one of about 5,000 in the South.

A Northern Neck couple arrested after their 6-year-old son crashed the family car while trying to drive himself to school appeared in court yesterday on child-endangerment charges. A Northumberland County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge appointed attorneys for Jaqulyn Waltman, 26, and David Dodson, 40. Each has been charged with one count of felony child endangerment. The judge also set a preliminary hearing for March 20.

A 6-year-old Northern Neck boy was so upset at missing the bus that he took the family’s car and tried to drive to school on the other end of Northumberland County before crashing. The 2005 Ford Taurus ended up with extensive damage, the parents were arrested, and the boy was taken to the hospital to be checked over—before authorities drove him to school.