John Latchford Beck, unofficial mayor of Ellicott City Main Street, dies

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John Latchford Beck, unofficial mayor of Ellicott City Main Street, dies

John Latchford Beck, an Ellicott City Main Street presence, retired archivist and Army linguist during the Vietnam War, died of cancer Jan. 30 at Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center. He was 82. Born in Baltimore and raised on Collins Avenue in Irvington, he was an Edmondson High School graduate. He enlisted in the Army, trained as an intelligence analyst at Fort  Holabird and then as a Vietnamese linguist at Fort Bliss in Texas. “He wo…