christmas behind bars - County Times - Southern Maryland Online
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Gazette<br />
December 22, 2011<br />
Calvert<br />
Priceless<br />
Everything Calvert <strong>County</strong><br />
Reaching OUT To Those Spending<br />
Christmas Behind Bars<br />
Page 11<br />
Photo By Frank Marquart
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 2<br />
Also Inside<br />
4 <strong>County</strong> News<br />
8 Community<br />
9 Education<br />
11 Feature Story<br />
12 Business<br />
13 Letters<br />
14 Obits<br />
15 Newsmakers<br />
16 Games<br />
17 Sports<br />
18 Entertainment<br />
19 Out and About<br />
education<br />
When Katie Lerch was in pre-kindergarten, she shared The Salvation Army’s, “Dress a Bear”<br />
program with Calverton School. Now she is continuing that spirit with a stuff a stocking effort.<br />
out and about<br />
There’s only 10 days left to catch Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center’s<br />
Garden in Lights in Solomons, which runs through Jan. 1.<br />
On T he Cover<br />
On Christmas Day, Chaplin Jerald Graham will stop<br />
by every cell in Calvert <strong>County</strong>’s Detention Center to<br />
give out Christmas cards and visit with each inmate.<br />
out & about<br />
FOR EVENTS HAPPENING IN<br />
YOUR AREA, CHECK PAGE 19<br />
IN OUT AND ABOUT
3 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
MHBR<br />
No. 103
COUNTY<br />
NEWS<br />
Shaw Removed From<br />
Commissioner Presidency<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Commissioner Jerry Clark has replaced Susan Shaw as President of the Board of<br />
<strong>County</strong> Commissioners.<br />
Clark was nominated by Commissioner Pat Nutter, who said the board of county<br />
commissioners is a learning experience. He said Shaw and Clark both have eight years<br />
experience and it is important to benefit from both of them.<br />
“You cannot just have one point of view,” Nutter said.<br />
Shaw said Nutter’s motive <strong>behind</strong> nominating Clark was flawed.<br />
“I do not believe county government should be a learning experience,” Shaw said.<br />
Changing the president would “be like starting over” and the transparency of the<br />
board could suffer under a new president, she said.<br />
Clark said the idea that the board could be less transparent without her as the<br />
president is “ludicrous.”<br />
He also disputed Shaw’s claim that the president is the top vote getter from the<br />
county commissioner election every four years. He said that has not been his experience,<br />
and for that to be the policy would mean the southern portion of the county,<br />
which has fewer voters, is never represented by the board president.<br />
Shaw also said the job description of the commission president is not complete.<br />
“The idea that the only job of the president is to set the agenda is dead wrong,”<br />
she said.<br />
Nutter said the commissioners can change the president at any time, and if having<br />
a new president is such a bad idea, they can always choose another one.<br />
In the end, Shaw was the only commissioner who didn’t vote Clark for president,<br />
with Evan Slaughenhoupt changing his vote from Shaw to Clark in what he called a<br />
show of solidarity with the board.<br />
“I guess we will see how this experiment works,” Shaw said. “I don’t think it’s a<br />
good experiment.”<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
By Alex Panos<br />
Contributing Writer<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 4<br />
O’ Malley Enacts Plan<strong>Maryland</strong><br />
Local Officials Say it Usurps Local Authority<br />
On Monday, Governor Martin O’Malley enacted<br />
Plan<strong>Maryland</strong>, beginning the vision of what<br />
state officials say will be long-term sustainable<br />
growth and development.<br />
The plan uses three types of maps, an environmental<br />
“GreenPrint”, agricultural “AgPrint”<br />
and developmental “GrowthPrint” in order to determine<br />
and implement the best growth pattern for<br />
<strong>Maryland</strong>, while preserving as many environmental<br />
and agricultural resources as possible.<br />
“[Plan<strong>Maryland</strong>] will serve as a tool for targeting<br />
resources,” O’Malley stated in a press release.<br />
“In the long run, that means a healthier environment,<br />
stronger communities and a more sustainable<br />
future and better quality of life for our kids.”<br />
According to the plan, the state government,<br />
more specifically a “Smart Growth Subcabinet”,<br />
will have majority say as to where state funding<br />
will be going and how it will be spent by county<br />
and local governmental entities.<br />
St. Mary’s <strong>County</strong> Commissioner Todd Morgan<br />
is one of many local officials who oppose Plan-<br />
<strong>Maryland</strong>, saying the idea of the state government<br />
having such a large say in local decision-making is<br />
“ridiculous.”<br />
While it is still to be determined what areas<br />
the Smart Growth Subcabinet will allocate money<br />
to, there is concern among Morgan and many other<br />
local officials in <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong> that it will not<br />
be coming their way.<br />
Morgan believes that most of the funding that<br />
was being sent to <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong> will now be<br />
going into metropolitan areas such as<br />
Annapolis, Baltimore, and the DC metro<br />
area.<br />
“With money going up the road, we<br />
are limited to what we can do because of<br />
Plan<strong>Maryland</strong>,” Morgan said.<br />
Calvert <strong>County</strong> Commissioner<br />
Evan Slaughenhoupt said O’Malley’s<br />
administration ignored 17 counties<br />
when they made the decision.<br />
“We wanted time to make improvements<br />
to the plan,” Slaughenhoupt said.<br />
“It was a single-minded decision … We<br />
never heard back on our suggestions. It<br />
was not even known if it was taken into<br />
the plan.”<br />
Leonardtown Town Administrator<br />
Laschelle McKay says there is a “concern<br />
over process of where to grow” because it is<br />
unknown how the growth maps will look.<br />
However, state documentation claims the plan<br />
does not ignore local governments, but help them.<br />
According to plan.maryland.gov, “Rather than<br />
threatening the ability of local governments to control<br />
their own destiny, Plan<strong>Maryland</strong> will enhance<br />
their capacity to do so.”<br />
Slaughenhoupt called this “laughable.”<br />
“The first chapter [of the document] says how<br />
they will not control local zoning,” he said, “And<br />
the rest of the document described how they will<br />
control local zoning.”<br />
St. Mary’s <strong>County</strong> officials echo a similar<br />
stance.<br />
“I strongly question the word ‘enhance,’” Morgan<br />
agreed.<br />
But O’Malley’s spokespersons defend the<br />
claim, emphasizing that the long decision making<br />
process has only just begun.<br />
“They will be part of the process.” Spokesperson<br />
Raquel Guillory said. “We’re planning on<br />
sitting down and meeting with county and town<br />
officials.”<br />
The <strong>Maryland</strong> Association of Counties, or<br />
MACo, has been voicing its concerns and will play<br />
a big role by representing <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong>’s<br />
views during the planning process. As Associate<br />
Director Leslie Knapp points out, there are still<br />
many holes to fill in the final draft of Plan<strong>Maryland</strong>.<br />
For the plan to be acceptable to MACo, Knapp<br />
said the state must advocate the planning guidelines,<br />
dilute the power of the Smart Growth Subcabinet<br />
and address fully if the local government is<br />
authorized to fund its own local projects.<br />
While Guillory said that the state would not<br />
stop a local government from beginning projects<br />
on its own dime, Knapp believes that the document<br />
implies otherwise.<br />
Aside from growth and development, officials<br />
claim Plan<strong>Maryland</strong> aids the preservation of <strong>Maryland</strong>’s<br />
vital natural resources.<br />
“We are going to make sure state resources are<br />
used wisely; agriculturally and environmentally,”<br />
Guillory said.<br />
Still, local officials aren’t buying it.<br />
“We have preserved 30,000 acres of land<br />
(in Calvert <strong>County</strong>) and are on track to preserve<br />
40,000,” Slaughenhoupt said. “We know what<br />
we’re doing and don’t need someone controlling<br />
it.”<br />
“The Grinch that stole Christmas equals Governor<br />
O’Malley and Plan<strong>Maryland</strong>,” Morgan said.<br />
Old Calvert Middle School<br />
to be Demolished<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
The old Calvert Middle School, currently sitting empty on the side of Route 4, is soon to be<br />
gone.<br />
At the Dec. 20 Board of <strong>County</strong> Commissioners meeting, a contract for $252,221 was awarded<br />
to Sun Demolition LLC out of Beltsville, with an additional $30,000 for unforeseen circumstances.<br />
<strong>County</strong> Commissioner President Jerry Clark said they go with the lowest qualified bidder for<br />
a job, a practice Commissioner Susan Shaw approved of, saying by saving money on the job, the<br />
commissioners can save money for the taxpayers.<br />
Shaw and Commissioner Evan Slaughenhoupt were pleased to see something being done in<br />
the New Town District in Prince Frederick, where the old Calvert Middle School is located.<br />
Slaughenhoupt said he has heard from voters in support of further development in the New<br />
Town district, one of eight districts in Prince Frederick, and has heard from citizens concerned<br />
about keeping growth in the town centers.<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net
5 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Lusby Ready for Christmas<br />
COUNTY<br />
NEWS<br />
The Lusby Business Association recently held its second Christmas tree lighting in the parking<br />
lot of the Bank of America. There was hot chocolate and face painting, and instead of the<br />
traditional compliment of sleigh and reindeer, Santa and Mrs. Claus showed up with a parade of<br />
Solomons Volunteer Fire Department fire trucks, all strung with Christmas lights. After lighting<br />
the Christmas tree, the Claus couple was available for pictures with children.<br />
Photos by Sarah Miller<br />
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COUNTY<br />
NEWS<br />
<strong>County</strong> Watching Cemetery<br />
Bankruptcy Process<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 6<br />
Safe Nights Offers Beds,<br />
Meals to People in Need<br />
By Guy Leonard<br />
Staff Writer<br />
State officials announced this week that<br />
Badtec, Inc., the company that owns <strong>Southern</strong><br />
Memorial Gardens in Dunkirk, has filed for<br />
Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy<br />
Court for the District of <strong>Maryland</strong>.<br />
The cemetery had been in foreclosure since<br />
the summer and a cease and desist order has<br />
been in place since August from the county’s<br />
Circuit Court that prohibited the owners from<br />
performing any new burials, according to information<br />
from the state’s Department of Labor,<br />
Licensing and Regulation (DLLR).<br />
The Office of Cemetery Oversight (OCO),<br />
part of DLLR, filed an injunction earlier this<br />
year against the cemetery owners, Daniel and<br />
George Martin, the principals in Badtec, Inc.,<br />
and the problems surrounding the cemetery led<br />
to criminal and civil charges against both.<br />
Burials have been allowed to continue<br />
since mid-August, a DLLR press release stated,<br />
but only if customers had owned a plot at the site<br />
prior to August 12 of this year and if the burial<br />
was being performed by another, independent<br />
contractor.<br />
The problems started when over the summer<br />
the property became subject to foreclosure<br />
by the bank, the state reported, and the OCO<br />
sought criminal charges against the owners for<br />
allegedly operating the cemetery without the<br />
proper permits and registration.<br />
Terry Shannon, county administrator, said<br />
the county is closely watching the proceedings<br />
and has worked with the state to try to maintain<br />
the site.<br />
“The biggest issue when it comes to us was<br />
the property being maintained,” Shannon told<br />
The Calvert Gazette. “You really feel for the<br />
folks with family there.”<br />
Shannon said that grass often went uncut<br />
there and the site was in generally lackluster<br />
condition, but volunteers have come forward to<br />
maintain it.<br />
“It’s been very heart warming,” she said.<br />
Badtec, Inc.’s creditors are scheduled to<br />
meet with state representatives Jan. 10 to discuss<br />
the future of the property, a DLLR press<br />
release stated.<br />
Parties with an interest in <strong>Southern</strong> Memorial<br />
Gardens are welcome to attend a Jan. 10<br />
meeting of creditors at 11:30 a.m. The meeting<br />
will be on the sixth floor of the United States<br />
Bankruptcy Court of the District of <strong>Maryland</strong> at<br />
6305 Ivy Lane in Greenbelt.<br />
guyleonard@countytimes.net<br />
MELLOMAR<br />
GOLF PARK<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Safe Nights is back for its fourth winter,<br />
offering assistance to people in need<br />
throughout the county.<br />
Mary Ann Zaversnik, who runs Safe<br />
Nights with her husband Joseph, said the<br />
number of host churches has grown to 23,<br />
and there are another 8-10 assisting churches<br />
offering additional support.<br />
Safe nights is offered now through<br />
April 8. Everyone in the program gets a<br />
warm place to sleep every night, and two<br />
meals plus a sack lunch every day. Zaversnik<br />
said people who register for Safe Nights<br />
are expected to be at the host church every<br />
night or at a pick up point to be transported<br />
to the church. Not coming without being<br />
excused can result in being suspended from<br />
the program, Zaversnik said.<br />
While the rules may be strict, Zaversnik<br />
said they are designed to keep everyone<br />
safe and help the program run smoothly.<br />
While the normal hours are 7 p.m. until<br />
7 a.m., during holidays and some Sundays<br />
when libraries and other public locations<br />
are closed the host churches will have daylong<br />
programs.<br />
Safe Nights works closely with Project<br />
ECHO. Project ECHO offers people a place<br />
to sleep for 90 days and coordinates with<br />
Safe Nights to help people who will reach<br />
the end of their 90 days and have nowhere<br />
to stay.<br />
“We want to try to work hand in hand<br />
with them,” Zaversnik said.<br />
Project ECHO also gets community<br />
support. Girl Scout Troop 1610 from Lusby<br />
recently held a cookie mix sale to help purchase<br />
items for sack lunches sent to Project<br />
ECHO.<br />
“It was hard for them to understand<br />
they were doing one project to raise money<br />
for another project,” troop leader Casey<br />
Hanback said.<br />
She said the project helped the girls get<br />
involved in community service. The troop<br />
has supported Project ECHO in various<br />
ways for the past few years.<br />
“I like the fact that I’m just helping<br />
out,” said Girl Scout Jordan Abell.<br />
Even though they want to help anybody<br />
who needs it, Zaversnik said Safe<br />
Nights doesn’t publicize what church they<br />
will be at on a given night because they<br />
would prefer the residents register for the<br />
program.<br />
“We did find we were being used as a<br />
drop in shelter,” Zaversnik said.<br />
The registration process also helps<br />
the group keep a count of the people they<br />
are expecting so they know there will be<br />
enough food and beds.<br />
For more information, call 443-486-<br />
8670 or visit calvertinterfaithcouncil.org/<br />
SafeNights.html.<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net<br />
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Mini Grant Funding Opportunities<br />
The <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong> Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Board has announced<br />
that applications for the Mini Grant Program are available.<br />
Projects selected for funding will assist RC&D in implementing its Annual Plan and Area<br />
Plan which are both focused on community development, land conservation, land management<br />
and water management in Charles, Calvert, St. Mary’s and Anne Arundel counties.<br />
The maximum amount for each mini grant award is $500. The <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong> RC&D<br />
Board will accept applications at its office in Leonardtown via email, fax or regular mail.<br />
The Mini Grant Program will operate on a rolling basis throughout the fiscal year (July 2011<br />
to June 2012) while funds are available. Applications are due the 1st of every month.<br />
Visit the website at www.somdrcd.org for more information about RC&D. Call the RC&D<br />
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and would like to receive an application.<br />
The RC&D is a nonprofit organization that carries out community development and conservation<br />
projects in Charles, Calvert, St. Mary’s and Anne Arundel Counties.
7 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Breakfast With Santa<br />
COUNTY<br />
NEWS<br />
Brent Sulhoff, Braden Blonshine and Ricardo Fabila<br />
grab some breakfast between shifts as Santa’s Helper Elves.<br />
Photos by Sarah Miller<br />
The Patuxent High School JROTC orchestrated their first Breakfast with Santa Dec. 18. JROTC Booster President<br />
Chris Tilley, said they brought in $1,365 before factoring in cost of the breakfast. “This is amazing considering our<br />
target audience were allowed to come in for free,” Tilley said. The JROTC will share 10 percent of the proceeds<br />
with the SMILE Food Pantry.<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
State Proposes More<br />
Time for WIP<br />
When the Chesapeake Bay’s Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) was first introduced<br />
by the EPA, <strong>Maryland</strong> volunteered to reach the 100 percent reduction goals by 2020, instead<br />
of 2025 as required by the EPA mandate.<br />
Now, with less than 10 years until 2020, the state is proposing to move their goal back<br />
to 2025 in order to have more time, according to <strong>Maryland</strong> Department of the Environment<br />
(MDE) spokesperson Samantha Kappalman.<br />
“The targets are constantly shifting,” Kappalman said. She said since the start of Phase I<br />
of the WIP, the state recognized a need to move the timeline out.<br />
“The early target date would be too hard to reach,” Kappalman said.<br />
In the draft of WIP Phase II the state submitted to the EPA, they proposed moving the<br />
self-imposed deadline back to 2025, in addition to other changes to be reviewed by the EPA<br />
before being adopted.<br />
“We’re now on track to meet it by 2025,” Kappalman said.<br />
Representatives of individual counties support moving the deadline back.<br />
“It certainly would help,” said Calvert <strong>County</strong> Principal Environmental Planner David<br />
Brownlee.<br />
Currently, Calvert is working on a WIP Phase II to be submitted to the state and the EPA.<br />
He said the county wouldn’t have met the goals by 2020, though efforts have been made<br />
to come in line with the EPA mandates. According to a Dec. 6 presentation by Brownlee to<br />
the Board of <strong>County</strong> Commissioners, some of the efforts made haven’t been fully recognized<br />
by the state and continued growth presents an additional challenge.<br />
“We need to turn the tide on pollution and we have made progress,” Brownlee’s presentation<br />
reads. “However, growth continues to set us back on the progress we are making.”<br />
There will be a second work session to discuss the Calvert <strong>County</strong> WIP Phase II on Jan.<br />
10. Brownlee said they will be addressing some of the concerns the commissioners had during<br />
the first work session.<br />
Jeff Jackman, senior planner for St. Mary’s <strong>County</strong>, said the county could probably<br />
meet the goal by the current deadline of 2020, but the process is “intricate, challenging and<br />
expensive.”<br />
“It is something we have to move forward with” Jackman said.<br />
He said the additional years could be useful, but if the state continues to change the deadline,<br />
he said there would need to be an understanding between the state and the individual<br />
counties so the counties deadline isn’t continuously changing as well.<br />
What it comes down to is money, officials from both counties said. In order to get on<br />
track and stay on track for the reduction goals, funding is required.<br />
Calvert <strong>County</strong> commissioners have not yet committed funding to the WIP Phase II,<br />
something Brownlee said will be discussed during the next work session.<br />
Jackman also said the “missing piece” is money.<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net<br />
Wishing you and your family a Merry<br />
Christmas and a safe and joyful holiday from<br />
the Stephen D. Mattingly Insurance Agency<br />
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Community<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 8<br />
Town Warns of<br />
Sewer Clogging<br />
By Guy Leonard<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Tuba Christmas<br />
On Thanksgiving<br />
Day, North Beach<br />
Town Councilman<br />
Mike Benton helped<br />
out some of their public<br />
works staff deal with a<br />
clogged sewer line located<br />
at the corner of<br />
Dayton Avenue and 3rd<br />
Street; what they found<br />
after they snaked out<br />
the line was a common<br />
cause to a messy problem,<br />
sanitary wipes.<br />
Benton retold<br />
the story at the Dec. 8<br />
council meeting and<br />
said town residents<br />
need to be more careful<br />
when it comes to what<br />
they dispose of in their<br />
household drains.<br />
He said that an<br />
overabundance of<br />
kitchen grease as well<br />
as sanitary wipes are Mike Benton<br />
the main culprits in<br />
perhaps three sewer clogging incidents in the past 18 months.<br />
“These things get caught and clog up; with that and with household<br />
grease, we’ve had problems,” Benton said.<br />
With the sanitary wipes, he said, they can become caught on<br />
any imperfection in the line and they continue to build up until they<br />
clog the system because they do not readily decompose.<br />
Residents may have a misconception, he said, that because the<br />
town is on central water and sewer it would not have the same problems<br />
associated with individual septic systems found throughout<br />
Calvert <strong>County</strong>.<br />
“They think it won’t clog but it does,” Benton said. “I even<br />
recycle my coffee grounds, I won’t put anything down the drain that<br />
shouldn’t be there.”<br />
guyleonard@countytimes.net<br />
Photo by Carrie Munn<br />
Tuba players from the tri-county area and beyond gathered recently to perform classic Christmas carols during the tenth annual Tuba Christmas at<br />
Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Solomons. All-tuba ensembles across the nation have been putting on the holiday show for 38 years.<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Provisions Sought For Box<br />
Stores in Prince Fredrick<br />
Larger stores in Prince Frederick may be on the horizon,<br />
if discussions before the Calvert <strong>County</strong> Planning<br />
Commission on proposed changes to the Prince Fredrick<br />
zoning ordinance are realized.<br />
Randy Barrett of Bargo L.L.C. is seeking the maximum<br />
square footage to be changed from 120,000 square<br />
feet to 125,000 square feet with a 1,000-foot road setback in<br />
the New Town District of Prince Fredrick. The New Town<br />
District is east of Solomons Island Road and north of Dares<br />
Beach Road in northern Prince Frederick.<br />
According to Calvert <strong>County</strong> Planning and Zoning<br />
O’Donnell Trying to Unseat Hoyer<br />
Director Chuck Johnston, a portion of the land in the New<br />
Town District is owned by Calvert <strong>County</strong> Public Schools<br />
and the Calvert armory.<br />
Before the change can be made, there will have to be<br />
a work session and public hearing. The planning commission<br />
anticipates the public hearing being well attended with<br />
the issue of big box stores in question, members said at their<br />
Dec. 14 meeting.<br />
In a letter to Johnston, Barrett said most larger builders<br />
scale prototypes to be between 120,000 and 125,000 square<br />
feet.<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net<br />
By Guy Leonard<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell, Republican minority leader in<br />
the <strong>Maryland</strong> House of Delegates, announced last week he is<br />
taking on Steny Hoyer for the 5th District seat in Congress in<br />
2012 and came out swinging by saying that Hoyer has contributed<br />
to the continued expansion of the federal government and<br />
national debt.<br />
O’Donnell’s announcement ends several weeks of uncertainty<br />
over whether he would seek to unseat the incumbent<br />
Democrat, who was elected to the seat in 1980.<br />
O’Donnell castigated Hoyer, accusing him of having a virtually<br />
identical voting record as that of House Minority Leader<br />
Nancy Pelosi, but he also recognized that his will be an uphill<br />
battle.<br />
The 5th District is overwhelmingly Democrat, with a near<br />
two-to-one advantage in voters; Hoyer defeated his last opponent<br />
in 2010, Charles Lollar, by 30 percentage points.<br />
Demographics have also shifted in key areas like Charles<br />
<strong>County</strong>, where an influx of Democrats helped carry Hoyer to<br />
victory with his solid win in Prince George’s <strong>County</strong>.<br />
“I am under no illusions with regards to the difficulties in<br />
this campaign … but I’m up to the challenge,” O’Donnell told<br />
the Calvert Gazette. “Let’s start solving this country’s problems.<br />
He’s [Hoyer] been there 31 years, what’s he doing to solve these<br />
problems.”<br />
One of O’Donnell’s key charges against Hoyer was that<br />
he was the chief vote wrangler for the Obama Administration’s<br />
health care bill, which O’Donnell said is an intrusion on personal<br />
freedoms.<br />
O’Donnell said he would campaign up to the end of November<br />
of next year, when the election will be decided. Hoyer has<br />
already stated publicly that he has filed for re-election and that<br />
he is confident that Democrats will retake the House of Representatives<br />
after being trounced by Republicans in 2010 mid-term<br />
elections.<br />
All this despite the announced retirements of several senior<br />
Democrats, including Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts,<br />
which some political pundits have said shows cracks in the Democratic<br />
Party’s ability to regain traction.<br />
“We need a congressman who understands what it’s like<br />
to live paycheck to paycheck … one who has not been disconnected<br />
from everyday <strong>Maryland</strong>ers for so long that he doesn’t<br />
remember what it’s like to struggle,” O’Donnell said in a video<br />
release announcing his candidacy.<br />
O’Donnell was elected to represent St. Mary’s and Calvert<br />
counties in the District 29C seat in 1994, when he defeated<br />
Thomas Pelagatti by 32 votes. In 2010, O’Donnell was reelected<br />
to his fifth term.<br />
guyleonard@countytimes.net
9 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Spotlight On<br />
Transition Students Have More<br />
Input Into Future Careers<br />
By Corrin M. Howe<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Sara Wagner, a teacher at Calvert High<br />
School, is excited her students have an opportunity<br />
to experiment with various skills in different career<br />
fields so they can provide input into the types of<br />
jobs they want when they transition out of school.<br />
She has seven students in ISLE – Intensive<br />
Structured Learning Environment, which according<br />
to Board of Education documents, “is designed<br />
to meet the needs of students who exhibit<br />
characteristics of autism spectrum disorders and<br />
whose needs cannot be met in lesser restrictive<br />
environments.”<br />
In an email inviting the Calvert Gazette to<br />
come see what her students are doing, Wagner<br />
wrote: “My students have special needs, primarily<br />
autism, and we go to the a pre-vocational work<br />
lab weekly. The [Practical Assessment Exploration<br />
System] PAES Lab is housed at the Country<br />
School and my students have been working very<br />
hard over there. The lab gives them an opportunity<br />
to try and become familiar with jobs in all types of<br />
fields. So often our special needs people are told<br />
what kind of a job they would be good at and told<br />
to do it.”<br />
According to Transition Specialist Zakia<br />
Lindsey, the school system purchased a program<br />
with grant money last year for students in the high<br />
school and functional students at Calvert Country<br />
School.<br />
The program takes skills from the career areas<br />
(consumer/service, construction/industrial, business/marketing,<br />
processing/production and computer tech)<br />
and breaks them down into smaller manageable tasks and<br />
then walks the students through learning the skill.<br />
For example, student John Kirby worked on a skill in<br />
processing/production. He pulled a large plastic bucket from<br />
the shelf and started sorting various shapes and sizes of pipes.<br />
Charts labeled from A to G had images in exact sizes that<br />
Kirby matched from pieces stored in the container.<br />
The program has him start a small timer to see how long<br />
it takes him to finish the task. Once he’s finished with the task,<br />
Wagner goes over a checklist with him to self evaluate how he<br />
did on his task. First students must decide if they finished the<br />
Victor Stew works on following instructions. His teacher says he is always happy<br />
and very quick and efficient with his tasks.<br />
John Kirby matches pipe sizes and shapes to charts.<br />
task correctly and whether they sought assistance. Next they<br />
compare their times with a chart to see if their performance<br />
fell in the category of slow, medium or fast. Finally, the students<br />
evaluate their personal interest in the task as high, medium<br />
or low. All this data is entered into a computer program<br />
which helps Wagner know the student's interests and abilities.<br />
Lindsey likes the program because the students learn<br />
real life work skills such as punching a time card. During the<br />
demonstration another real world scenario played out. Students<br />
discovered they weren't always able to locate the materials<br />
and supplies necessary to perform their tasks. In one<br />
case the box was misfiled. In another, the item wasn't in the<br />
room.<br />
“They are students now, but they will be adults<br />
in the community,” said Lindsey. And they want to be<br />
productive members of society.<br />
Wagner likes the data collection. It helps her to<br />
individualize her instruction to the student’s interests<br />
and needs.<br />
“What I’m finding is they might have a high interest<br />
level in a task, but they don’t perform it well. Now<br />
I know what I need to do to help them get good at the<br />
job.”<br />
Being organized, staying on task, following instructions,<br />
self evaluating and correcting are all “executive<br />
function” skills that many children with special<br />
needs lack. The lab also helps her to write better goals<br />
and objectives for the student’s annual educational<br />
plan. She can identify skills that need to be “generalized”<br />
or taken from one environment to another.<br />
The program is open to all the high schools but so<br />
far Calvert High and Patuxent are the only ISLE programs<br />
taking advantage of it. According to Lindsey<br />
having to travel by bus to Calvert <strong>County</strong> School in<br />
Prince Frederick is a limiting factor.<br />
Lindsey said the program has a middle school<br />
component where teachers start talking about jobs,<br />
introducing them to vocabulary and work scenarios so<br />
that they are familiarized with the lab when the students<br />
enter high school.<br />
corrin@somdpublishing.net<br />
<strong>Maryland</strong> Earns Race<br />
to the Top Grant<br />
By Corrin M. Howe<br />
Staff Writer<br />
As other states continued to slash education funding, the<br />
<strong>Maryland</strong> State Education Association (MSEA) reports that intense<br />
activism on their part led to the General Assembly restoring<br />
a large chunk of the governor’s proposed education budget cuts<br />
during legislators’ last session.<br />
As it stands, the current total of state aid to public schools<br />
is roughly $5.8 million for FY2012, with additional funding for<br />
school construction projects totaling nearly $300 million. About<br />
$47.5 million worth of those projects are funded out of appropriated<br />
funds from the new alcohol tax, with another $15 million<br />
going to the Developmental Disabilities Administration, as originally<br />
intended.<br />
The state will provide $92.7 million in education funding<br />
to St. Mary’s <strong>County</strong> for FY 2012 and $82.9 million to Calvert<br />
<strong>County</strong>, according to MSEA. Both figures are less than those for<br />
the current year.<br />
At the county level, education officials’ worry rests on local<br />
government funding, which averages at 46 percent statewide but<br />
has been under intense scrutiny by commissioners as they work<br />
through local budgets.<br />
Gaining a leg up through the federal government, <strong>Maryland</strong><br />
was announced as one of nine states to receive a multi-million<br />
dollar grant for the Race To The Top Early Learning Challenge,<br />
reports <strong>Maryland</strong> State Department of Education. While hard<br />
numbers are unavailable, MSDE stated <strong>Maryland</strong> was eligible<br />
for $50 million over four years and these funds are targeted at<br />
narrowing the school readiness gap for disabled children, English<br />
language learners and children living in poverty.<br />
According to an MSDE press release, over the past decade,<br />
children in <strong>Maryland</strong> have improved their school readiness assessments,<br />
upon entering kindergarten, from 49 to 81 percent.<br />
Congressman Steny Hoyer (MD-5) said, “In applying for<br />
this grant, <strong>Maryland</strong> created a plan to increase access to highquality<br />
programs for children from low-income families, providing<br />
more children from birth to ages 5 with a strong foundation<br />
necessary for success in school and beyond.”<br />
Senators Mikulski and Cardin also issued statements highlighting<br />
the state’s strong support for and accomplishments in<br />
early childhood education.<br />
“As Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and<br />
Families, I believe that early childhood education and care has<br />
one of the most profound impacts on a child’s future,” Mikulski<br />
stated. The funds will be channeled into comprehensive education<br />
reform that will improve academic standards and assessments,<br />
support staff and enhance achievements at the lowest<br />
performing schools.<br />
carriemunn@countytimes.net<br />
Until Behavior<br />
Improves, Patuxent<br />
High Lunch Period<br />
Shortened<br />
Patuxent High School administration has suspended student’s<br />
one-hour lunch program indefinitely.<br />
Instead, students will have a half hour lunch period either<br />
at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of their fifth period.<br />
According to the school’s website, in order to have one hour<br />
lunch reinstated, the administration will expect students to be<br />
on time to their classes, improve their behavior in the cafeteria<br />
and have a hall passes when out of class. The administration also<br />
expects public displays of affection to stop.<br />
When contacted for more information, Patuxent High<br />
School principal Nancy Highsmith said she has no comment.
Spotlight On<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Learn and Share at National<br />
Mentoring Month Breakfast<br />
The Calvert <strong>County</strong> Mentoring Partnership (CCMP)<br />
is hosting its Seventh Annual National Mentoring Month<br />
Breakfast on Thursday, Jan. 19, from 8:30 to 11 a.m., at<br />
the <strong>Southern</strong> Community Center in Lusby.<br />
Gary Wynn, president of the Solomons Steelers<br />
Youth Football and Cheerleading, will be the Honorary<br />
Chair at this free networking event. The breakfast will<br />
feature a panel discussion from business leaders, school<br />
officials, non-profits, and the community on their perspective<br />
of mentoring, and information on how to get<br />
involved in mentoring programs.<br />
Individuals, businesses, government agencies,<br />
schools, faith communities and local nonprofit organizations<br />
can all play a part in increasing the number of mentors<br />
in Calvert <strong>County</strong> and assuring a better future for our<br />
youth, a press release states.<br />
The Mentoring Breakfast is held in observance of<br />
National Mentoring Month 2012, a month-long campaign<br />
dedicated to recruiting caring mentors for America’s<br />
youth.<br />
Research has shown that mentorship can play a<br />
powerful role in reducing drug abuse and youth violence,<br />
while greatly enhancing a young person’s prospects for<br />
leading a healthy and productive life. Calvert <strong>County</strong><br />
is rich in opportunities for young people to become involved<br />
with an adult who cares about their well-being. If<br />
your organization offers a mentoring program that you<br />
wish to feature at a booth at the breakfast, email Nadine<br />
Happell at nhappell@gscnc.org.<br />
To RSVP for the FREE National Mentoring Month<br />
Breakfast, or to sponsor the event on behalf of a business<br />
or organization, contact Roseanna Vogt at the Circle of<br />
Angels Initiative at 301-778-3848 or by email at circleofangels@chesapeake.net.<br />
Calverton Students Fill Stockings for<br />
Less Fortunate<br />
Eleven years ago when Katie Lerch, current ninth<br />
grade student at The Calverton School, was in pre-kindergarten,<br />
she shared The Salvation Army’s, “Dress a<br />
Bear” program with Calverton.<br />
Each child in Katie’s class took home a bear,<br />
dressed it in an outfit, delivered it back to school, and<br />
the bears were sent to The Salvation Army to be distributed<br />
to less fortunate children during the holidays.<br />
In the years following, the entire Lower School<br />
participated in the program, a Calverton press release<br />
states. Unfortunately, due to the expense of the bears,<br />
The Salvation Army is no longer able to provide bears<br />
for the “Dress a Bear” program. They are, however,<br />
able to provide the school with stockings to fill and/or decorate.<br />
On Nov. 22, each Lower School student, including students in preschool and pre-kindergarten, received a stocking.<br />
In the spirit of giving and compassion, students will fill the stocking and decorate if they wish, for another child.<br />
During class time, students will also write a letter to the child receiving their stocking.<br />
The stockings will be displayed in Calverton’s Lower School library honoring the act of giving to others this<br />
holiday season.<br />
By Corrin M. Howe<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 10<br />
SLES Winter Festival<br />
Includes Art Show,<br />
Holiday Shop<br />
and Book Fair<br />
St. Leonard Elementary School recently combined an art show,<br />
a holiday shop and book fair for its after school Winter Festival<br />
celebration.<br />
Art teacher Mimi Torres lined all the cafeteria tables with pinch<br />
pots, Christmas trees, animals, angels and coil pots created by preschool<br />
through fifth grade students. Each grade worked on same<br />
theme; however, none of the grade levels shared the same subject.<br />
“Each project took about three class periods. One to shape, one<br />
to paint and one to make up missed work or add fine detail,” said Torres,<br />
who is new to Calvert Public Schools but having taught in Puerto<br />
Rico and New York over the last 12 years.<br />
In the gym, SLES VP Janel McPhillips was one of the many<br />
volunteers helping students do their holiday shopping. Each table<br />
grouped trinkets in one price range or themes. For example, one table<br />
displayed items for adult men while another for adult women. Parents<br />
waited out in the hall while their children selected items for family<br />
members. After the students purchased their items, more tables<br />
and volunteers were available to help wrap them.<br />
Back in the library, a book fair vendor and volunteers<br />
sold reading materials, computer games and<br />
posters to families looking for additional choices for<br />
holiday gifts. The bank of computers was very popular<br />
and kept children entertained while waiting for their<br />
parents to shop or visit with other adults.
11 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
STORY<br />
Jail Chaplain to Meet<br />
By Corrin M. Howe<br />
Staff Writer<br />
With Each Inmate<br />
On Christmas<br />
Day, Chaplain Jerald<br />
Graham will<br />
stop by every cell<br />
in Calvert <strong>County</strong>’s<br />
Detention Center<br />
to give out Christmas<br />
cards and visit<br />
with each inmate.<br />
It is another way he<br />
and other volunteers<br />
serve a part of the<br />
population locked<br />
away from sight and<br />
memory.<br />
Although<br />
the time between<br />
Thanksgiving and<br />
the New Year is<br />
called a time for<br />
giving and spreading<br />
cheer, the average<br />
citizen, church<br />
group or service<br />
organization cannot<br />
serve the local prison population on the holidays.<br />
For the health and safety of everyone<br />
involved, Graham says there are very specific<br />
rules about what can be brought into the jails<br />
and all volunteers have to go through training<br />
first.<br />
Graham is part of a volunteer ministry<br />
called Point of Change Jail and Street Ministry,<br />
Inc. out of Waldorf founded by Chaplain<br />
John Lewis. In 2008, Charles <strong>County</strong> Detention<br />
Center welcomed Lewis as their Chaplain<br />
after he’d served as a volunteer there.<br />
Graham heads up the Calvert program<br />
Point of Change runs 17 “sessions” a<br />
week in Calvert’s Detention Center. The majority<br />
of the sessions are religious services,<br />
10 to be exact, and the others are educational<br />
in nature including a program called REST<br />
– Rehabilitation Empower Structure Transition.<br />
Residents on their way out of the center<br />
and back into the community can apply to<br />
enter into the program which teaches computer<br />
skills, anger management, goal setting,<br />
resume writing, interviewing skills, first aid<br />
and other programs<br />
Since the program started in Calvert<br />
none of the inmates have returned to jail,<br />
something Graham and Lewis are proud of,<br />
considering the national recidivism rate is<br />
43.3 percent of inmates return within three<br />
years of being released.<br />
Point of Change is volunteer driven and<br />
has a budget which comes strictly from donations.<br />
At this point it has brought in nearly<br />
$22,500 in annual revenue but has paid out<br />
over $26,000 in expenses.<br />
“We do the work and have faith” that the<br />
financial needs will be met, said Graham. He<br />
would love to see local churches willing to<br />
donate even $25 a month to the work to help<br />
them “keep their head above water.”<br />
Graham volunteers nearly full-time and<br />
works shift work at the Metro. His wife also<br />
has a full-time job which provided for his<br />
family.<br />
“Seeing lives changed for the better<br />
means more than any dollar amount,” he said,<br />
when asked how he can invest so much of his<br />
time administrating 75 services a month.<br />
A number of local churches support the<br />
jail ministry as well. They send volunteers to<br />
run Bible studies and educational programs.<br />
He said he has one volunteer who has been<br />
there 20 years.<br />
Anyone wanting to come in to volunteer<br />
has to go through a three to four hour class<br />
after a clearance check. After the class the<br />
volunteer will receive a badge. The training is<br />
“very important because the officers go over<br />
the dos and don’ts.”<br />
The reason for providing training sessions,<br />
especially at the local jails, is to help<br />
the inmates develop skills and make better<br />
choices when they return. Otherwise, “they<br />
return back to the same community which got<br />
them in trouble to begin with,” said Graham.<br />
Space is a limiting factor in the number<br />
of programs they can offer. He can only<br />
schedule 12 inmates at a time for a session<br />
of any kind, religious or educational. Each<br />
week he puts out a list and inmates sign up<br />
for something they want.<br />
Graham said if he could “write a check”<br />
he could purchase a facility in which he could<br />
help with at-risk youth and work with them<br />
before they make bad choices. At the same<br />
facility he would run follow up programs for<br />
those transitioning out of jail.<br />
He would also partner with more local<br />
churches to provide the “after care” necessary.<br />
It could be as simple as churches providing<br />
classroom space for his volunteers to<br />
continue teaching computer skills, job readiness,<br />
matching positive mentors up with at<br />
risk youth and helping them find productive<br />
channels for their energy and creativity.<br />
“All the youth we work with say they<br />
made the wrong choices. We teach them not<br />
to allow peer pressure to get them down the<br />
wrong path,” said Graham.<br />
The programs in the jail are even helping<br />
those not participating, according to Graham.<br />
“They see the lives changing and they want to<br />
be a part of that.”<br />
By Corrin M. Howe<br />
Staff Writer<br />
‘What Teaching In<br />
Prison Taught Me’<br />
Everybody has a story to tell. Merle<br />
Morrow, like many, experienced a life changing<br />
event on Sept. 11, 2001. She was a civil<br />
rights attorney working for the Department of<br />
Justice conducting an investigation at a men’s<br />
maximum security prison. As she was escorted<br />
to where she had to go, the guards walked<br />
her through a chapel where several inmates<br />
were preparing a service.<br />
“The men in here are as devoted to their<br />
country as people on the outside, but many<br />
can’t write an intelligent letter to us – their<br />
government – to ask for help,” she said. Then<br />
she asked herself what she was going to do<br />
about it.<br />
Long story short, she left her job on Sept.<br />
28, 2001. By April 2002, she had received orientation<br />
to become a GED teacher at <strong>Maryland</strong><br />
House of Correction, commonly referred<br />
to as the Cut. She spent three years at a maximum<br />
security men’s prison in a room full of<br />
men convicted of significant crimes. She was<br />
alone with them twice a week with the closest<br />
guard down the hall and around the corner.<br />
“It was a one room school with educational<br />
levels from 1st to 12th grade. I didn’t<br />
know enough to panic. I’d never taught before<br />
and had a room full of students. We had fun in<br />
the classroom. These men worked hard. They<br />
did their homework. They wanted to grow as<br />
human beings even though some knew they’d<br />
never get out,” said Morrow, who wrote about<br />
her experience in a book called “So Am I:<br />
What Teaching In Prison Taught Me.”<br />
The first thing she had to do was convince<br />
herself that these men “were fellow<br />
children of God” and worthy of respect. So<br />
she went in right away, ready to look them in<br />
the eye. The first year and a half she worked<br />
with her students, she didn’t know what kinds<br />
of crimes they committed. However, when<br />
they asked her to write a book about them, to<br />
show the world that they are just like everyone<br />
else only having made bad choices, Morrow<br />
realized she needed to learn about their<br />
crimes.<br />
Once she started reading the trial records,<br />
she went through a “spiritual struggle”.<br />
“How do I go back into the classroom?<br />
These men had become my friends. It is different<br />
having a friend as a rapist than it being<br />
a stranger,” she said.<br />
On the other side of her struggle, she realized<br />
“these men aren’t one thing or another.<br />
They were more than their horrible crimes.<br />
They wanted to be better people. They wanted<br />
to give back.”<br />
While she was working there, she had<br />
seen conditions which troubled her. She wanted<br />
to make a change, but didn’t know how.<br />
Then she had a spiritual director tell her, “You<br />
have to change hearts before you can change<br />
systems.”<br />
She hopes her book will change hearts.<br />
“Even if my book only changes two, it will<br />
be a start.”<br />
Her students asked her to write the book<br />
about their experiences. She agreed and decided<br />
to donate the proceeds to at risk programs<br />
for youth at the request of her students.<br />
She would love to come talk to groups<br />
and organizations who want to learn more<br />
about her experience and how they can help<br />
change one heart at a time by working with<br />
youth before they end up in prison or helping<br />
to educate those in prison so they don’t<br />
return.<br />
Contact her at: A Closer Connection,<br />
LLC, P.O. Box 70, Owings, MD 20736 or<br />
www.teachinginprison.com.<br />
Morrow agreed to write some of<br />
her students with questions from the<br />
Calvert Gazette. Here are some of their<br />
thoughts:<br />
How can society help prevent people<br />
from ending up in prison?<br />
“Society can start programs, open<br />
up jobs, schools. Teach people to learn<br />
to do the right things in life. Teach them<br />
about going to church, treat people with<br />
respect.” - James Hill.<br />
“Help youth to be interested in/<br />
like different types of trades and apprenticeships<br />
programs. Which provide<br />
a great education as well as a<br />
great means of living, having recover<br />
programs for adults, more affordable<br />
educational classes, more interactive<br />
self-help groups.” - Donti Hayes<br />
“Society needs to invest money<br />
in the kids; recreation and vocational<br />
training.” - Thomas Maddox.<br />
“I believe it starts with at risk kids.<br />
Because the at-risk kids that enter juvenile<br />
facilities, three out of four become<br />
adult offenders. So society must give<br />
them what they need while they are<br />
young.” James Wells.<br />
What kinds of programs are<br />
needed in prison? If you could control<br />
prison programming what would you<br />
provide?<br />
“Reinstitute an emphasis on rehabilitative<br />
programming. Since the<br />
majority of prisoners are destined to<br />
return to society it seems logical and<br />
practical to have them better prepared<br />
to return to society.”<br />
“More programs that will enhance<br />
a person’s educational level and<br />
programs that prepares men for employment<br />
and gives them life skills.”
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 12<br />
3/50 Project<br />
Promotes Local<br />
Businesses<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Their motto is “pick 3, spend 50, save your loca<br />
economy.”<br />
The 3/50 Project promotes stronger local economies<br />
through support of independent retailers and the consumers<br />
who shop with them.<br />
Area businesses involved in the project include DB<br />
McMilians Pub and Grill, Fenwick Street Used Books and<br />
Music and Crazy for Ewe in St. Mary’s <strong>County</strong> ad Dickinson<br />
Jewelers, Heavenly Chicken and Ribs and Second<br />
Looks Books in Calvert <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Amy Thompson, owner of the Lola Belle Company<br />
in Leonardtown, said she has been in the 3/50 Project for<br />
the past six months, and they have given her promotional<br />
tools to tell the community how small businesses serve<br />
their community.<br />
“Small businesses have grown his community,”<br />
Thompson said.<br />
She said small businesses have a vested interest in<br />
the community they serve, and give back directly to the<br />
people who help them succeed. In addition to helping with<br />
promotional ideas, she said the 3/50 projects helps small<br />
businesses find ways to give back to their communities.<br />
Registration for the 3/50 Project is done at the website,<br />
and there are categories for storefront retailers, other<br />
small businesses, businesses wearing national or regionally<br />
recognized brand names, supporters that don’t fit into<br />
the small business category and other supporters.<br />
Thompson said she has had no lack of support, and<br />
believes the public understands just how much they need<br />
to support locally owned and operated small businesses.<br />
“I think our community understands, definitely,” she<br />
said.<br />
According to the 3/50 project website, for every $100<br />
spent at locally owned independent stores, $68 returned to<br />
the community through various means. Only $43 from national<br />
chains stays in the community. And the community<br />
gets nothing from Internet purchases.<br />
If half the employed population spent $50 at three<br />
local small businesses, it would generate $42.6 billion in<br />
revenue, which could go to help employ more people and<br />
allow the small businesses to grow and better serve the<br />
community.<br />
For more information or to become a supporter of the<br />
3/50 Project, visit www.the350project.net.<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Walking into Total Eclipse<br />
Day Spa, customers are greeted<br />
by the coos of the store’s mascot<br />
mourning dove instead of piped<br />
music over a speaker system and<br />
welcomed by one of the handful<br />
of women working at the spa.<br />
Total Eclipse celebrates its<br />
third anniversary Dec. 23 and,<br />
so far, business has been good.<br />
Owner Hilde Woell said the spa<br />
is meant to be a “one stop shop”<br />
where customers can come in to<br />
get pampered from head to toe.<br />
For customers getting three<br />
or more separate services done<br />
during the day, such as a hair cut,<br />
a facial and a massage, they also<br />
get lunch catered from CD Café.<br />
In addition, refreshments offered<br />
for all customers.<br />
“We spoil our customers, “<br />
Woell said.<br />
The spa believes in giving<br />
back to the community that<br />
keeps them in business. During<br />
December and January, 5 percent<br />
of all revenue is donated to<br />
the Humane Society of Calvert<br />
<strong>County</strong> and the American Cancer<br />
Society. She also donates gift<br />
certificates for spa treatments to<br />
various fundraisers.<br />
Total Eclipse offers discounts<br />
to customers who get<br />
three or more people to some in<br />
for services. Woell said the majority<br />
of their clientele<br />
comes in<br />
because<br />
o f<br />
Total Eclipse Day Spa<br />
Celebrates Third Year<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net<br />
word of mouth.<br />
“We’re Calvert <strong>County</strong>’s best kept secret,” Woell<br />
said.<br />
Woell is currently looking to hire “anything buy<br />
receptionists,” she said. She said she is looking for<br />
licensed cosmetologists, manicurists, pedicurists<br />
and other specialists who take initiative and pride in<br />
their work.<br />
Total Eclipse boasts state of the art equipment,<br />
including pedicure chairs with massage features and<br />
hospital grade disinfectants. They also mix dye colors<br />
in front of customers at a color bar so the customers<br />
can see the process instead of being left alone until their<br />
stylist comes back.<br />
“I need someone serious, willing to work, no mood<br />
swing people here,” Woell said.<br />
For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit<br />
totaleclipsesalonspa.com.<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net
13 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Editorial<br />
Stories Highlight True<br />
Meaning of Christmas<br />
Today’s cover stories highlight a local jail and street ministry’s work in the Calvert<br />
Detention Center and the story of a woman teaching among <strong>Maryland</strong>’s toughest<br />
criminals. A common theme ran through their stories, the need for more programs<br />
to help at risk youth and to educate those already in prison. Although these<br />
stories are running together, they were actually conceived and people interviewed<br />
months apart. The decision to run these stories this week came two months later.<br />
In November the Calvert Gazette ran stories about local programs and organizations<br />
providing the very services mentioned in the featured stories. In fact, for the<br />
second year in a row, Calvert <strong>County</strong> has won the 100 Best Communities for Young<br />
People given by America’s Promise Alliance in recognition for programs targeting<br />
the high school drop-out rate, and coming together as a community to identify and<br />
address gaps in services to the youth.<br />
According to a report from March 2010 from the Department of Legislative<br />
Services Office of Policy Analysis, Calvert’s Detention Center averaged 230 inmates<br />
a day in its population. So one can assume, if the prisoners quoted in the featured<br />
stories story are an accurate reflection of what others in their situation would<br />
say, there appears to be a gap between the services offered and their target audience.<br />
So the answer can’t be as simple as providing more programs, spending more<br />
on education and rehabilitation or working with at risk populations. While these are<br />
necessary and great goals and should be done, there has to be a different and better<br />
answer.<br />
Merle Morrow said her spiritual director told her, “The way you change systems<br />
is by changing hearts.”<br />
As mentioned above, there appears to be a gap between what many in society<br />
are trying to provide and what others in society are receiving. How can the gap be<br />
filled? Maybe the answer is in what seemed purely coincidental, the choice to run<br />
the featured stories this week. The front cover photo is of Chaplin John Graham<br />
passing out Christmas cards and “giving an individual word to each of the inmates.”<br />
Over a century ago, on March 12, 1905 on page four of the Washington Post<br />
the headline read “Fervor of Religious Revival Stirs Two Continents.” The headline<br />
took up eight column spaces. The accompanying the story related information<br />
about 100,000 confirmed conversions in Wales and unnumbered conversions<br />
in London and a half a dozen American cities. The Post “proclaimed that the earth<br />
would become heaven if people would only “realize God” and follow the Golden<br />
Rule,” according to authors Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge in A God-Sized<br />
Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir.<br />
The story further stated that in Wales, “the police found no crime to investigate<br />
amid ‘an almost complete realization of the Golden Rule in all affairs of daily life.’”<br />
The origin of Christmas comes from the Christian story of God stepping down<br />
from heaven to take the form of a baby, later to grow into the man of Jesus. Whether<br />
you believe that Jesus was both fully man and fully God is up to you. But that is<br />
what Christians profess. One international ministry which teaches about Jesus uses<br />
the illustration of two cliffs separated by a bottomless pit – man is on one cliff and<br />
God is on the other. “How can man get across to God?” The ministry draws a bridge<br />
that takes the form of a cross, the place upon which Jesus died for proclaiming his<br />
message.<br />
Jesus’ message was about changing hearts. One at a time. He said. “There is no<br />
greater love than this that a man lay down his life for another.” He had two meanings<br />
in mind when he said this. First he foretold of his dying for his people. But he<br />
also meant people laying down their lives daily for others. Imagine if everyone laid<br />
down time spent watching TV, reading the Internet Social Networks, working extra<br />
hours to get ahead … and invested that hour or so a week in developing relationships<br />
with at risk youth, teaching a job skills class in prison or mentoring an inmate who<br />
just got out of prison.<br />
The nation was originally founded by men and women who believed in the<br />
message of Jesus, the reason for Christmas. As the nation moves further away from<br />
the lessons taught, the prisons fill up. Coincidence? While the Gazette doesn’t have<br />
space to provide all the prisoner’s responses to questions asked, it was interesting to<br />
note that the majority wrote about getting back to teaching church, morals, respect,<br />
spirituality, and sanctity of life as solutions for keeping the prison population down.<br />
The message of the Christmas season boils down to this: When God considered<br />
the struggles of humanity he did not just resource a project to help out. He laid<br />
aside the comforts of heaven and came down to earth. Jesus lived among his people,<br />
personally touching them at their point of greatest need. In addition to the resources<br />
of governments and charities, society needs more people like Chaplin John Graham<br />
and Merle Morrow who followed Jesus’ example willingly laying aside their comforts<br />
to touch those in need. Not just as an act of holiday kindness, but throughout<br />
the year.<br />
When is a Birthday<br />
Cake an Ethics<br />
c<br />
Violation?<br />
By Susan Shaw<br />
Calvert <strong>County</strong> Commissioner, 2nd District<br />
Recently, the criminal<br />
cases of former<br />
Prince Georges <strong>County</strong><br />
Executive Jack Johnson<br />
and his wife, Councilmember<br />
Leslie Johnson,<br />
have been in the news.<br />
How did the so-called<br />
“pay to play” culture of<br />
corruption develop in<br />
Prince George’s <strong>County</strong><br />
and then continue for so<br />
long?<br />
At the very beginning of the problem someone<br />
should have filed an ethics complaint before the behavior<br />
escalated to the criminal level. Is this what<br />
would have happened in Calvert <strong>County</strong>? I hope<br />
so.<br />
Calvert <strong>County</strong> has an Ethics Commission<br />
comprised of citizen members appointed by the<br />
Board of <strong>County</strong> Commissioners (BOCC). There<br />
is also a state Ethics Commission, from whom the<br />
local Ethics Commission can seek advice. The role<br />
of the Calvert <strong>County</strong> Ethics Commission (CCEC)<br />
is first to provide advice, training, and counsel to<br />
<strong>County</strong> employees and <strong>County</strong> elected officials to<br />
try to prevent any ethics issues. When asked for<br />
advice, the CCEC may issue an advisory opinion<br />
that is available to other employees who may have<br />
the same or similar questions. Employees, elected<br />
officials, and many Board and Commission members<br />
are required to fill out a financial disclosure<br />
statement at the beginning of each calendar year.<br />
The CCEC reviews these forms and follows up to<br />
clarify any apparent conflict of interest.<br />
In the last <strong>Maryland</strong> Legislature, an updated<br />
state ethics bill was passed with new, strengthened<br />
requirements that counties pass similar local legislation.<br />
Our local CCEC had already been working<br />
on a re-write of our local ethics code. Using the<br />
Publisher<br />
Thomas McKay<br />
Associate Publisher Eric McKay<br />
Editor<br />
Sean Rice<br />
Graphic Artist Angie Stalcup<br />
Office Manager Tobie Pulliam<br />
Advertising<br />
sales@somdpublishing.net<br />
Email<br />
info@somdpublishing.net<br />
Phone 301-373-4125<br />
Staff Writers<br />
Guy Leonard<br />
Sarah Miller<br />
Corrin Howe<br />
Contributing Writers<br />
Joyce Baki<br />
Keith McGuire<br />
Law Enforcement<br />
Government, Education<br />
Community, Business<br />
to the<br />
Editor<br />
LETTERS<br />
ommissioners<br />
guidance of the new state ethics code,<br />
the CCEC has presented some draft ethics<br />
ordinances to the BOCC.<br />
I have been disappointed to learn that the<br />
updated state code still sets the gift limit for reporting<br />
at $20, which I see as being too low. If<br />
someone bakes a fellow employee a birthday cake,<br />
that could cake could be worth more than $20. The<br />
employee must report all gifts that have a value of<br />
more than $20.<br />
I see the first role of the CCEC as being to address<br />
conflicts of interest and perceived conflicts<br />
of interest. What is the difference between an<br />
actual and a perceived conflict of interest? Very<br />
little. If it looks like self-dealing, it probably is<br />
self-dealing. The second role is to address undue<br />
influence. Judging undue influence can be tricky,<br />
because perhaps the individual just made an error<br />
in judgment or a mistake that benefits a particular<br />
party without any undue influence from anyone or<br />
any benefit to self.<br />
If the CCEC suspects a bigger problem that<br />
might rise to the level of criminal behavior, they<br />
refer their suspicions to the State’s Attorney’s Office<br />
for further investigation.<br />
As part of the current update of the Calvert<br />
<strong>County</strong> Ethics Code, the CCEC requested subpoena<br />
power. Later, they modified the request to<br />
one for summons power. This request is controversial.<br />
An appointed Ethics Commission is not<br />
a court. It turns out that, so far, no one has ever<br />
failed to appear at a CCEC inquiry when requested<br />
to do so. However, in some instances, individuals<br />
have failed to bring requested documents and have<br />
declined to answer some questions. That happens<br />
even in court. Should this type of judicial power<br />
be extended to the appointed citizens of the CCEC?<br />
What about due process and privacy rights? Stay<br />
tuned as the BOCC continues to weigh the pros and<br />
cons on the way to a new Ethics Code.<br />
Calvert Gazette<br />
P. O. Box 250 . Hollywood, MD 20636<br />
c<br />
orner<br />
The Calvert Gazette is a weekly newspaper providing news and information for the residents of<br />
Calvert <strong>County</strong>. The Calvert Gazette will be available on newsstands every Thursday. The paper is<br />
published by <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong> Publishing Company, which is responsible for the form, content, and<br />
policies of the newspaper. The Calvert Gazette does not espouse any political belief or endorse any<br />
product or service in its news coverage. Articles and letters submitted for publication must be signed<br />
and may be edited for length or content. The Calvert Gazette is not responsible for any claims made<br />
by its advertisers.
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 14<br />
Rita Vick, 60<br />
Rita Maria<br />
Vick, 60, of Lusby,<br />
MD, formerly<br />
of Silver Spring,<br />
MD passed away<br />
on Dec. 9, 2011 at<br />
Calvert Memorial<br />
Hospital, Prince<br />
Frederick, MD.<br />
She was born<br />
on May 6, 1951 in<br />
Cheverly, MD to<br />
the late Armondo<br />
and Frances Pietraskiewicz.<br />
Rita is survived by her husband Rudy<br />
Vick; daughter Joyce Sacks of Calvert <strong>County</strong>;<br />
son, Danny Vick of Illinois and her granddaughter<br />
Keston Sacks.<br />
The family received friends on Thursday,<br />
December 15, 2011 at 10:30 AM until the<br />
time of the service celebrating her life at 11:30<br />
AM., Father John Howanstine officiated. Interment<br />
followed in Solomons United Methodist<br />
Church Cemetery, Solomons, MD.<br />
Should friend’s desire contributions may<br />
be made in her memory to St. Leonard Volunteer<br />
Fire and Rescue Squad, 200 Calvert Beach<br />
Road, Saint Leonard, MD 20685. Arrangements<br />
by the Rausch Funeral Home, P. A.,<br />
Lusby, MD. rauschfuneralhomes.com.<br />
Charles LaMarr, 84<br />
Where Life and Heritage are Celebrated<br />
www.RauschFuneralHomes.com<br />
Owings<br />
8325 Mt. Harmony Lane<br />
410-257-6181<br />
Charles Arthur<br />
LaMarr, 84<br />
of Hollywood,<br />
MD died December<br />
19, 2011<br />
at Solomons<br />
Nursing Center.<br />
Born September<br />
11, 1926<br />
in Indianapolis,<br />
IN, he was the<br />
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son of the late Paul A. LaMarr and Mary<br />
(Monroe) LaMarr.<br />
Charles was a United States Marine<br />
Corp. Master Sergeant, serving for twenty<br />
four years. After retiring from the USMC<br />
in 1968 at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station,<br />
he worked for 22 years as a manual<br />
writer for Lockheed Martin. Charles was<br />
the first volunteer for the <strong>Maryland</strong> State Police,<br />
Leonardtown, MD, serving over 10,000<br />
hours. He was a member of the Hollywood<br />
Moose Lodge, Chapter 2173 and the VFW<br />
in California, MD. Charles was married to<br />
Rosalie Anderson on February 8, 2003 in Issue,<br />
MD.<br />
Charles is survived by his wife, Rosalie,<br />
his children, Thomas Gauchat (Lin)<br />
of Solomons, MD, Michele Zito of Helena,<br />
AL, and Donald LaMarr of (Joan) of Santa<br />
Clarita, CA, his stepchildren, Joseph L. Anderson<br />
(Kim) of Hollywood, MD, Michelle<br />
Richards (Scott) of Hollywood, MD, Mary<br />
McLean (Michael) of Waldorf, MD and<br />
George C. Anderson (Beth Poor) of Leonardtown,<br />
MD, 17 grandchildren, 23 great<br />
grandchildren and 7 great-great grandchildren.<br />
In addition to his parents, Charles was<br />
preceded in death by his wife Rosemary<br />
(Elliott) LaMarr in 2001, his children, Mary<br />
Perkins and John Gauchat and his brother,<br />
Paul LaMarr.<br />
The family received friends for Charles’<br />
Life Celebration on Wednesday, December<br />
21, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.<br />
at St. George Catholic Church, 19199 St.<br />
George’s Church Road, Valley Lee, MD<br />
20692. A Mass of Christian Burial was<br />
celebrated by Monsignor Karl A. Chimiak.<br />
Interment will be private.<br />
Serving as pallbearers were members<br />
of the <strong>Maryland</strong> State Police. Serving as<br />
honorary pallbearers were two of Charles’<br />
sons and six grandsons.<br />
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions<br />
may be made to the Hollywood Volunteer<br />
Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 79, Hollywood,<br />
MD 20636.<br />
Arrangements by the Brinsfield Funeral<br />
Home, P.A., Leonardtown, MD. www.brinsfieldfuneral.com.<br />
Wesley Mandell, 84<br />
W e s l e y<br />
Corbin Mandell,<br />
USN Retired, of<br />
Upper Marlboro,<br />
MD passed<br />
away peacefully<br />
after a brief illness<br />
on December<br />
8, 2011, at<br />
age 84. Wes was<br />
born on July 9,<br />
1927, in El Paso,<br />
Texas, to the late<br />
Darwin and Louise Mandell.<br />
He grew up on a farm with his three<br />
younger brothers in the Mesilla Valley area<br />
of eastern New Mexico and enlisted in the<br />
U.S. Navy on December 7, 1944. He served<br />
his country for 30 years, retiring as an E9<br />
Master Chief Petty Officer. Most of his<br />
Navy career was spent in the engine room<br />
of nuclear propulsion submarines. Following<br />
his naval retirement, he worked another<br />
20 years at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power<br />
Plant. Never one to sit still and always<br />
someone who needed a purpose, his second<br />
retirement was followed by numerous part<br />
time jobs including serving as a bailiff in<br />
the Prince George’s <strong>County</strong> Court House<br />
in Upper Marlboro for many years until he<br />
“officially” retired last year. As a resident<br />
of Upper Marlboro for 56 years, he enjoyed<br />
serving his community and his church, Trinity<br />
Episcopal. He was proud to be a member<br />
of the Fleet Reserve in Annapolis; the<br />
American Legion; the Benevolent and<br />
Protective Order of Elks in Deale; the<br />
Moose Lodge in Upper Marlboro; the<br />
FOP Lodge 89; and the Masonic Centennial<br />
Lodge in Upper Marlboro. He<br />
was truly one of a kind and he will be<br />
dearly missed.<br />
He was preceded in death by his<br />
wife, Mildred Buck Sherbert Mandell,<br />
and by his brothers Darwin “Junior”<br />
and Paul Mandell.<br />
He is survived by his brother Harold<br />
Mandell of San Antonio, Texas;<br />
two daughters Donna Hyatt of Richmond,<br />
VA, and Ann Marie Smith and<br />
her husband Pierre Laprade Smith of<br />
Chesapeake Beach, MD; and his son<br />
Melvin D. Sherbert and his wife Janet<br />
Distad Sherbert of Dunkirk, MD. He<br />
is also survived by his grandchildren<br />
Marleigh and Jared Smith and Doug,<br />
Greg, and Russell Sherbert; six greatgrandchildren;<br />
one great-great-granddaughter;<br />
and numerous nieces and<br />
nephews.<br />
The family received friends on<br />
Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 at Rausch Funeral<br />
Home, 8325 Mt. Harmony Lane,<br />
Owings, MD from 7:00 – 9:00 P.M.<br />
The interment will be privately held at<br />
a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorial<br />
contributions may be made in his<br />
memory to Trinity Episcopal Church,<br />
P. O. Box 187, Upper Marlboro, MD<br />
20773 or to a charity of your choice.
15 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Newsmakers<br />
Christmas Tour of Decorated Homes<br />
Becoming an Annual Event<br />
By Corrin M. Howe<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Three businesses and six<br />
homeowners who are members of<br />
the Republican Women Leaders<br />
of Calvert (RWLC) opened their<br />
homes and businesses recently for<br />
the Second Annual Christmas Tour<br />
of Decorated Homes.<br />
Changing their annual fundraiser<br />
from a wine tasting, the<br />
RWLC collected $25 per person to<br />
walk through decorated homes in<br />
the middle of the county. Last year,<br />
the first year of the Christmas Tour,<br />
the homes were in the northern<br />
end of the county, while next year<br />
they hope to have homes from the<br />
southern end.<br />
The money raised goes toward<br />
the Joyce Lyons Terhes Scholarship,<br />
named for the founding member<br />
of the organization and awarded<br />
to a Calvert <strong>County</strong> high school<br />
student who has “demonstrated<br />
their belief in the philosophy and<br />
initiatives of the Republican Party<br />
and their support of conservative<br />
causes,” according to the tour program<br />
guide.<br />
The day turned out sunny<br />
with a slight nip in the air as men<br />
and women drove from house to<br />
business between Dunkirk Town Center and<br />
Prince Frederick Shopping Center. The tour<br />
hours opened at 10 a.m. and lasted until 5 p.m.<br />
The tour itself took about three hours.<br />
While all the houses were decorated for<br />
Christmas, one house in particular felt like<br />
walking into a Christmas store with every<br />
room dressed to the nines.<br />
Mary Orrecchio, of Huntingtown, told<br />
guests she started decorating on September 1<br />
and only recently finished. She will leave everything<br />
up until at least February. Walking<br />
into the two story stucco house, visitors were<br />
greeted immediately by “glitzy” silver decorations<br />
in the formal dining room and entry.<br />
Further back in the house were some more traditional<br />
reds and greens. Bathtubs filled with<br />
white and red poinsettias.<br />
In the program, Orrecchio said her “husband<br />
doesn’t know what to say when he answers<br />
the door on Halloween. Merry Christmas<br />
This white penguin on skies decorated a doorway outside<br />
Leslie Wills home in Ownings.<br />
or Trick or Treat.”<br />
Michael Overfelt showed off his holiday<br />
decorated “man cave,” a cottage off the driveway<br />
of the main house. He wore a Santa hat,<br />
smoked his cigar and invited people to partake<br />
of the finger sandwiches as he showed off his<br />
new space, “just in time to watch the last half of<br />
the football season.”<br />
James and Janice Graner of Huntingtown<br />
stepped up to open their house when<br />
damage from Hurricane Irene knocked the<br />
original house off the tour.<br />
When asked which of the four decorated<br />
Christmas trees they would hide presents<br />
under, Graner laughed. “Good<br />
question. Probably the newest tree<br />
in the newly refinished basement.”<br />
corrin@somdpublishing.net<br />
Michael Overfelt welcomes tour visitors into his newly remodeled “man cave” where he can enjoy his cigars.<br />
AUCTION AUCTION<br />
New Years Day<br />
Antique & Collectible<br />
Sunday, January 1st - 10 a.m.<br />
Chesapeake Auction House<br />
St. Leonard, MD 20685 • 410-586-1161 • chesapeakeauctionhouse.com
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 16<br />
Kiddie er<br />
n<br />
Kor<br />
CLUES ACROSS<br />
1. Angry<br />
4. Mr. Claus<br />
9. Minerals<br />
11. Gluten-free diet disease<br />
12. Nickel-cadmium<br />
accumulator<br />
14. Day or rest & worship<br />
15. King of Magadha<br />
(273-232)<br />
16. Satisfy an appetite<br />
17. Stage signal<br />
18. Durable aromatic wood<br />
19. Something used to lure<br />
20. Actress Basinger<br />
21. A rare and exceptional<br />
person<br />
24. Quick head movement<br />
25. Yeddo<br />
26. Mythological bird<br />
27. Root mean square (abbr.)<br />
28. Chart of the Earth’s<br />
surface<br />
29. Fish eggs<br />
30. Recto<br />
37. The cry made by sheep<br />
38. Pitcher<br />
39. Supports climbing plants<br />
40. Arbitrager<br />
41. Winglike structures<br />
42. Singer Ross<br />
43. Belonging to Barney &<br />
Betty<br />
45. “Promises” author Wendi<br />
46. Swindles<br />
47. In widespread existence<br />
48. Those opposed to<br />
49. Used to be U___<br />
CLUES DOWN<br />
1. Grace’s Principality<br />
2. No longer seated<br />
3. Translate into ordinary<br />
language<br />
4. Point that is one point E of<br />
SE<br />
5. Linen vestment worn by<br />
priests<br />
6. A B vitamin<br />
7. Ryan O’Neal’s daughter<br />
8. Dull steady pain<br />
10. Seaport on Osaka Bay<br />
11. Cowpunchers<br />
13. Mend a sock<br />
14. Ship’s canvas<br />
16. Aformentioned<br />
19. Big man on campus<br />
20. English actress Stark<br />
22. Malaria mosquitoes<br />
23. Many subconsciousses<br />
26. A scrap of cloth<br />
27. Cry loudly<br />
28. Actress Farrow<br />
29. S. Korean Pres. Syngman<br />
(1948-65)<br />
30. Rectangular grooved joint<br />
31. “___ the night before<br />
Christmas”<br />
32. Male parents<br />
33. Earlier in time<br />
34. Rampart of felled trees<br />
35. Scoundrel (Yiddish)<br />
36. Pencilmark remover<br />
37. Danish ballet dancer Erik<br />
40. Blood clams genus<br />
41. Subsititutes (abbr.)<br />
44. Spoken in the Dali region<br />
of Yunnan<br />
Last Week’s Puzzle Solutions
17 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Sp rts<br />
Fur and<br />
Feathers<br />
By Keith McGuire<br />
Contributing Writer<br />
I’ve been hearing reports<br />
from Calvert, Charles and St.<br />
Mary’s counties that the firearms<br />
season for our region was<br />
dismal. I can vouch for that!<br />
The deer just seemed to disappear<br />
when the guns came out –<br />
more so than usual. Sure, there<br />
were some lucky hunters who<br />
bagged really nice bucks with<br />
their guns, and quite a few does<br />
as well. The local deer processing<br />
facilities report that numbers<br />
of deer brought in for butchering<br />
are less, but very nearly the same<br />
as they were last year. As I sat in the woods throughout the<br />
season, there were not as many blasts punctuating the woodland<br />
symphony as there seemed to be last year.<br />
Last Friday, <strong>Maryland</strong> DNR released the preliminary<br />
harvest totals for the 2011 firearms season. Overall, the harvest<br />
is up slightly from 2010, but in our region the overall total<br />
is down by about 1% (according to them). Statewide the<br />
total harvest from the regular firearms season was 41,421.<br />
In 2010 the total was 40,694.<br />
The totals for the tri-county region 2011 Regular<br />
Firearms Season are as follows:<br />
<strong>County</strong> Antlered Antlerless Total 2010 Total<br />
Calvert 243 549 792 704<br />
Charles 555 1085 1640 1878<br />
St. Mary’s 379 839 1218 1304<br />
The Junior Firearms Season was 2 days long this year<br />
– for the first time ever – and the harvest for this season<br />
alone was up by 47%. Twenty of the State’s 23 counties<br />
allowed hunting on Sunday on private land during the junior<br />
season. The statewide total harvest for the Junior Firearms<br />
Season was 3,014. In 2010, 2053 deer were harvested<br />
by juniors. The breakdown for the tri-county region Junior<br />
Firearms Season is as follows:<br />
<strong>County</strong> Antlered Antlerless Total 2010 Total<br />
Calvert 32 30 62 30<br />
Charles 61 62 123 79<br />
St. Mary’s 48 50 98 42<br />
Last Saturday, instead of being in the woods for<br />
the beginning of the late segment of the Muzzleloader<br />
Season, I found myself at an afternoon holiday party.<br />
There was not a single hunter or angler there besides<br />
me, so I was a little out of my element. One very nice<br />
lady asked me if I knew of a way to get more deer to<br />
her back yard. She loves to watch them and has had<br />
little success at attracting them to stay. She has tried<br />
apples and even a salt lick. The apples rot where she<br />
puts them – even hanging from a string – and the salt<br />
lick dissolves away in the rain.<br />
Now, I really hate to tell people how to attract deer<br />
to their backyards because those who do often regret<br />
their actions when they discover how deer love to eat<br />
Deer Harvest<br />
flowers and rub the bark from small trees and shrubbery.<br />
Still, the lady persisted, so I told her to coat her salt lick<br />
with molasses or one of the concoctions sold in sporting<br />
goods stores for this method of attracting deer. If that’s not<br />
enough, buy several bags of “deer corn” (which is little more<br />
than shelled corn) and spread that corn on the ground. Autumn<br />
harvest “ear corn” will also work. Then I reminded<br />
her that deer are very nocturnal creatures, but when fed and<br />
not disturbed, she could expect to see them at all times of<br />
day or night. Deer are fascinating creatures to watch. A few<br />
years back, I used these methods to attract deer to my own<br />
back yard until my better half – a devoted gardener – taught<br />
me the error of my ways.<br />
If you have a particularly interesting hunting story and<br />
a picture, please drop me a line at riverdancekeith@gmail.<br />
com.<br />
If you have a particularly interesting hunting story<br />
and a picture, please drop me a line at riverdancekeith@<br />
gmail.com.<br />
Ah those summer days of fishing!<br />
A View From The<br />
Bleachers<br />
By Ronald N. Guy Jr.<br />
Contributing Writer<br />
A s s e m b l e<br />
all NFL teams<br />
together and, like<br />
every schoolyard,<br />
you’ll find<br />
a sample of styles<br />
covering the<br />
entire athletic<br />
continuum. The<br />
awkward and uncoordinated<br />
(the<br />
Colts and ‘Skins),<br />
the talented but<br />
unfocused (the<br />
Cowboys), the<br />
naturally gifted and elegant (Green Bay)<br />
and even the bullies are represented. There<br />
are many teams claiming territory in this<br />
latter group, but there’s only one true NFL<br />
playground thug: the Pittsburgh Steelers.<br />
No sports franchise personifies its city<br />
more accurately than the Steelers. The<br />
franchise’s name and logo were, obviously,<br />
derived from the local trademark steel industry,<br />
but the team’s cultural connection<br />
with the region is far deeper than these<br />
superficial indicators. Western Pennsylvania<br />
is synonymous with Appalachia, rugged,<br />
resilient Americans and steel. Similarly,<br />
as far back as the early 1970s and the<br />
famed Steel Curtain defense, Pittsburgh<br />
has proudly been one of the NFL’s tough<br />
guys. Stingy defenses, hard hits and bluecollar,<br />
no-nonsense players have been the<br />
hallmark of Steelers football for 40 years.<br />
The organization long ago adopted a successful<br />
formula that, like a good family<br />
recipe, they’ve stubbornly maintained without<br />
compromise. They draft and develop<br />
their own players and have little use for free<br />
agents who’ve been corrupted with another,<br />
non-Steelers culture. They seek out “steel”-<br />
minded, hard-nosed coaches that embody<br />
the “Steelers way “, show them uncommon<br />
loyalty – they‘ve had but three coaches<br />
since 1969 – and empower them to run the<br />
football operations. It’s a business model,<br />
a franchise and a style of play I’ve admired<br />
for many years. That admiration, despite<br />
the team’s on-going success, is starting to<br />
wane.<br />
Savage Amusement<br />
Violence, an innate aspect of football,<br />
is under assault. League rules regarding<br />
hits on quarterbacks and defenseless receivers<br />
has been redefined; the powers-that-be<br />
in the NFL have absolutely zero tolerance<br />
for helmet to helmet hits and NFL headhunters<br />
who lead recklessly with the crown<br />
of their helmets. As one might suspect, such<br />
violence legislation and its enforcement has<br />
been met with great resistance from fans<br />
and players alike. Every Sunday fans erupt<br />
over perceived dubious personal fouls and<br />
players cry to their union over league-levied<br />
fines for illegal hits. Ground zero for<br />
this battle between old school football ops<br />
and the new school neutering of defensive<br />
aggression is Pittsburgh, Penn.<br />
No team has gotten more publicity for<br />
its blackout hits and fines than the Steelers.<br />
The new rules fly in the face of everything<br />
the Steelers are and team and fans are united<br />
in their angst. I was with them for a while.<br />
Now my answer to Black and Gold nation’s<br />
gripes is “too bad.” The truth is violence<br />
follows the Steelers. If you watch a team<br />
against any other opponent and then watch<br />
them against the Steelers, you’ll see two<br />
different brands of football. The Steelers<br />
are like the attitude-laden co-worker who<br />
brings out the worst in everyone around him<br />
or her. Watch a Steelers game and you’re<br />
probably going to see someone from the<br />
other team knocked senseless and stagger<br />
off the field. And for the most part, football<br />
fans – Steelers fans or otherwise – love it.<br />
That is sad commentary on the lack of basic<br />
humanity pervading society and stands on<br />
Sundays. Our ignorance of the long-term<br />
impact of concussions is long gone. There<br />
should be a collective intolerance for players<br />
who blatantly and habitually hit opponents<br />
high and disgust, not barbaric celebration,<br />
when someone’s husband, father<br />
or son is knocked senseless. For whatever<br />
reason, such play follows the Steelers and<br />
in this battle of wills, the NFL will, thankfully,<br />
prevail. The Steelers will conform…<br />
eventually. Their style represents football’s<br />
past, the league’s approach its sustainable,<br />
safer future.<br />
In the movie Gladiator, an enslaved<br />
Maximus continues to win the favor of his<br />
captors and fans for his victorious acts of<br />
violence in arranged battles. In a poignant<br />
moment, Maximus, irritated by the bloodthirst<br />
of spectators seeking savage amusement,<br />
hurls his sword at his captor’s perch.<br />
The act was met with catcalls and prompts<br />
an annoyed Maximus to yell, “Are you not<br />
entertained?” In that moment Maximus,<br />
as the great human conscience, captures<br />
exactly how I feel about Steelers football.<br />
Am I entertained by Steelers football? Not<br />
anymore.<br />
Send comments to rguyjoon@yahoo.com
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Thursday, December 22, 2011 18<br />
The Calvert Gazette is always looking for more local talent to feature!<br />
To submit art or band information for our entertainment section,<br />
e-mail sarahmiller@countytimes.net.<br />
Community Choir Raises Money for Charities<br />
By Sarah Miller<br />
Staff Writer<br />
For nine years, the Chesapeake Community Chorus has<br />
been entertaining the community and raising money for local<br />
charities.<br />
“Both things are very important to us,” said Larry Brown,<br />
the chorus director for the past nine years.<br />
William Goodwin, a recent addition to the chorus, said<br />
singing has “been in the back of my mind for many years” but it<br />
was the charities the group is involved in that gave him the final<br />
push to go ahead and do it.<br />
“That it was involved with Hospice made it a no brainier,”<br />
Goodwin said.<br />
Vivian Wright, who has been singing with the group for the<br />
past three years, also said she got involved in the chorus due to<br />
its connection with Hospice. She said she has volunteered with<br />
Hospice, and loves singing so the chorus was a perfect fit for her.<br />
The original purpose of the chorus was to raise money<br />
for Hospice, and the chorus has since branched out to be an all<br />
around fundraising group. Instead of charging admission, individuals<br />
attending concerts are asked to make a donation, which<br />
are passed on. Brown said the chorus doesn’t charge admission<br />
because they “want to make sure everyone comes that wants to<br />
come.”<br />
Most of the music the group performs is sacred music; fitting<br />
for the church settings where the group normally performs.<br />
For a little bit of variety, they will throw in a little bit of gospel<br />
and “general concert type music,” Brown said.<br />
They are not a professional group, but every member is a<br />
volunteer and there because they want to be there, not because<br />
they are getting paid or receiving credits for school. The singers<br />
love for what they do comes out in their performance, with every<br />
singer engaged and actively participating.<br />
Goodwin said that because the chorus is all-volunteer,<br />
Brown has to be able to direct and lead the group without forcing<br />
them to do anything, a feat he accomplishes with energy<br />
and style. He said Brown gives and takes suggestions, and is as<br />
excited about the chorus as his singers.<br />
The chorus doesn’t rehearse every week, and Brown said the number of<br />
people in the choir changes each time. On average, he said there are 30 singers<br />
at rehearsals and 25 at concerts. The chorus is always looking for more<br />
singers. Most of the performances and rehearsals are in the late afternoon on<br />
Sundays in order to have the least impact on the workweek and to allow the<br />
most people to join in.<br />
People interested don’t have to audition or have prior experience, just a<br />
willingness to come and sing, Brown said.<br />
‘We’d love to have anybody,” Brown said.<br />
For more information, call Brown 301-855-7477 or e-mail lbrown9601@<br />
verizon.net.<br />
sarahmiller@countytimes.net<br />
Upcoming<br />
Rehearsals<br />
and Concerts<br />
Jan. 8, 2012 -<br />
practice, 4-6 p.m.<br />
Saint Paul United<br />
Methodist Church<br />
HG Trueman Road and<br />
Cove Point Road<br />
Jan. 15 -<br />
practice, 4-6 p.m.<br />
North Beach Union Church<br />
8912 Chesapeake Avenue,<br />
North Beach<br />
Jan. 22 -<br />
practice, 4-6 p.m.<br />
Northeast Community Center<br />
4075 Gordon Stinnett Avenue,<br />
Chesapeake Beach<br />
Feb. 19 -<br />
practice, 4-6 p.m.<br />
Northeast Community Center<br />
4075 Gordon Stinnett Avenue,<br />
Chesapeake Beach<br />
March 18 -<br />
practice, 4-6 p.m.<br />
Northeast Community Center<br />
4075 Gordon Stinnett Avenue,<br />
Chesapeake Beach<br />
April 15 -<br />
practice, 4 p.m. concert, 5 p.m.<br />
Waters Memorial<br />
United Methodist Church<br />
5400 Mackall Road, St. Leonard<br />
April 22 -<br />
practice, 4 p.m. concert, 5 p.m.<br />
North Beach Union Church<br />
8912 Chesapeake Avenue,<br />
North Beach<br />
May 6 -<br />
practice, 4 p.m., concert, 5 p.m.<br />
Huntingtown<br />
United Methodist Church<br />
4020 Hunting Creek Road,<br />
Huntingtown<br />
May 20 -<br />
practice, 4-6 p.m.<br />
Northeast Community Center<br />
4075 Gordon Stinnett Avenue,<br />
Chesapeake Beach
19 Thursday, December 22, 2011<br />
The Calvert Gazette<br />
Out & About<br />
• Tens of thousands of holiday lights<br />
twinkle in Chesapeake Beach to make it<br />
the Brightest Beacon on the Bay. Take<br />
the family and ride through Chesapeake<br />
Beach to enjoy holiday lights displayed<br />
until the week after the New Year. (www.<br />
chesapeake-beach.md.us)<br />
• Make a stop at Tan’s Cycles to visit<br />
their free Holiday Train Garden. The train<br />
garden is on a 20’ X 20’ platform with<br />
five levels, 30 trains, seven super streets,<br />
a carnival, waterfall, construction site,<br />
disappearing trains, tunnels, bridges and<br />
much more. The Holiday Train Display<br />
begins November 25 and runs through<br />
January 14, weekdays 3 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays<br />
noon to 5 p.m.; special times on<br />
Dec. 24 and 31 (noon to 5 p.m.) and Dec.<br />
27 thru 30 (noon to 8 p.m.). Tans is at<br />
9032 Chesapeake Avenue, North Beach.<br />
For more information, call 410-257-6619.<br />
• Surround yourself with one-of-akind,<br />
handmade creations at Annmarie<br />
Garden’s annual Garden in Lights. Mythical<br />
creatures, spectacular wild animals,<br />
illuminated works of art, hidden beasts,<br />
romantic dancers and more will delight<br />
all ages. Don’t forget to ask for a “holiday<br />
I spy” program. After your walk, enjoy<br />
a hot drink, entertainment, the Ornament<br />
Show and the Celebrations Glass Exhibit<br />
in the Arts Building. Garden in Lights<br />
runs through January 1, 2012. Check the<br />
website for more information: www.annmariegarden.org.<br />
• The Chesapeake Beach Railway<br />
Museum invites you to share in a holiday<br />
tradition as their “conductors” read a classic<br />
children’s Christmas story, “The Polar<br />
Express,” on Thursday, December 22, at<br />
6 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. After each reading<br />
there will be a tour of Chesapeake Beach<br />
on the Holiday Trolley. Space is limited<br />
and reservations are required. Learn<br />
more about this event at www.cbrm.org<br />
or call the museum at 410-257-3892. You<br />
may reserve your space online at http://<br />
www.planetreg.com/E101111521898.<br />
• Dunkirk Baptist Church invites<br />
you to join us Saturday, December 24<br />
at 6PM for our Family Christmas Eve<br />
Candlelight Worship. For more information<br />
call: 301-855-3555 or click: www.<br />
dunkirkbaptistchurch.org<br />
• SMILE, INC. invites you to a<br />
Christmas Dinner from 11:30 am - 2:30<br />
pm on Christmas Day to be held at the<br />
Arick L. Lore Post 274 American Legion<br />
in Lusby. Santa Claus and his helpers<br />
will be there with toys for the children<br />
and it is fun for all. Christmas Dinner at<br />
the American Legion Hall has become<br />
a tradition. SMILE gathers volunteers<br />
to prepare and serve the dinner. Santa<br />
Claus, though weary from the previous<br />
evening’s deliveries also volunteers his<br />
time and arrives with a bag full of gifts.<br />
Some of our guests find such a meal beyond<br />
their means, others are alone and<br />
enjoy the company and still others simply<br />
do not care to cook.<br />
• Dunkirk Baptist Church invites<br />
you to join us Sunday, December 25 at<br />
10:30AM for our Christmas Day Family<br />
Worship. For more information call: 301-<br />
855-3555 or click: www.dunkirkbaptistchurch.org<br />
• Looking for things to do with the<br />
family during the holidays? The Calvert<br />
Marine Museum offers programs<br />
throughout the school holiday. Each day<br />
from December 26 through December 30<br />
you can discover interesting facts about<br />
sea life. Did you know horseshoe crabs<br />
have been around since dinosaurs? What<br />
good are jellyfish? On Friday, December<br />
30, visit the Discovery Room for a handson<br />
lesson about the different kinds of<br />
turtles that can be found in our area. On<br />
Monday, January 2, kids can take special<br />
tours of the Drum Point Lighthouse and<br />
learn what life was like for children stationed<br />
at the lighthouse with their families.<br />
Check the Calvert Marine Museum<br />
website, www.calvertmarinemuseum.<br />
com, for complete listings and registration<br />
information. All programs are free<br />
with museum admission.<br />
• Start off your New Year with an invigorating<br />
swim in the Chesapeake Bay!<br />
Join the crowd at North Beach as they run<br />
across the beach into the chilly waters for<br />
the annual Polar Bear Plunge. After, everyone<br />
will warm up beside a large beach<br />
bonfire and enjoy a hot drink. It is great<br />
fun for all ages – both to participate and<br />
to watch! The fun starts at 1 p.m. at the<br />
beach located at the intersection of 5th<br />
Street and Bay Avenue. (www.ci.northbeach.md.us)<br />
• Dunkirk Baptist Church invites<br />
you to join us Sunday, January 1 as we<br />
celebrate the New Year. 9:15AM we will<br />
have Sunday School for all ages and at<br />
10:30AM we will have a New Year’s Day<br />
Worship. For more information call: 301-<br />
855-3555 or click: www.dunkirkbaptistchurch.org<br />
• Is your New Year’s resolution going<br />
to be “Get a new job”? If so, you<br />
may want to register for the resume and<br />
cover letter workshops offered at Calvert<br />
Library Prince Frederick. Beginning<br />
Jan. 3, library volunteer and job<br />
counselor Sandra Holler will host small<br />
group workshops from 10 a.m. to noon<br />
two Tuesdays a month, usually the first<br />
and third Tuesday. Participants will learn<br />
what makes a strong resume and cover<br />
letter and will get individualized help. If<br />
you already have a resume started, bring<br />
it with you so editing can happen on the<br />
spot. Registration is required and can be<br />
done through the library website at calvert.lib.md.us<br />
or by calling 410-535-0291.<br />
For more information, call Robyn Truslow<br />
at 410-535-0291 or 301-855-1862.<br />
• It is that time of year again! The<br />
Annual Giant Gently Used Book Sale<br />
hosted by Friends of Calvert Library<br />
will begin with a members-only preview<br />
night on Thursday, Jan. 12 from 5-8pm.<br />
You can join at the door with $10 for an<br />
individual and $15 for a family membership.<br />
The sale opens to the public on Friday,<br />
Jan. 13 from noon to 4pm and will<br />
also be held on Saturday, January 14<br />
from 9am-3pm. The event is in the meeting<br />
rooms at the Calvert Library Prince<br />
Frederick and there will be thousands of<br />
books in good to excellent condition.<br />
• Sunday Conversations with Chesapeake<br />
Authors at 2 p.m. Jan. 15 will feature<br />
Richard LaMotte, back by popular<br />
demand, to talk about his beautiful book<br />
“Pure SEA GLASS.” LaMotte will identify<br />
sea glass and show sample glassware.<br />
Sea Glass jewelry will be featured in the<br />
Museum Store and the artists that make<br />
it will also be on hand. Purchase a copy<br />
of “Pure Sea Glass” and have it signed on<br />
the spot.<br />
Garden in Lights Continues to Jan. 1<br />
Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center in Solomons is<br />
continuing its award-winning Garden in Lights through Jan. 1.<br />
Showcasing several hundred handmade light sculptures<br />
throughout the 30-acre park, visitors will be surrounded by a<br />
holiday light show that won <strong>Maryland</strong> Life Magazine’s Best<br />
Holiday Tradition award in 2010. Garden in Lights attendees<br />
will be able to see a myriad of light sculptures which include<br />
mythical beasts, a circus, dancers, animated characters, the<br />
Centennial of Naval Aviation, and much more.<br />
Starting the light show experience in Annmarie’s 15,000<br />
sq. ft. arts building, visitors will begin their adventure with live<br />
entertainment, shopping opportunities at the 4th Annual Ornament<br />
Show & Sale, and be able to indulge in some light refreshments<br />
before heading outside to see the light sculptures.<br />
In addition, Annmarie will also be hosting a Marine Corps<br />
Reserve Toys for Tots drive throughout the Garden in Lights<br />
event. Visitors are asked to bring a new, unwrapped toy to the<br />
Annmarie Arts building for local kids in need of some holiday<br />
cheer; why not give the gift of joy while enjoying Garden in the<br />
Lights this year.<br />
Garden in Lights opens from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. weather permitting<br />
and with limited closures (December 24-25). Admission<br />
is only $5 (Children 4 and under and members are free).<br />
Annmarie will continue its normal hours of operation for its<br />
featured Toys and Imagine a… exhibits during the day.<br />
For more information about Garden in Lights or Annmarie<br />
Sculpture Garden & Arts Center, go to www.annmariegarden.org<br />
or call 410-326-4640.<br />
Thursday,<br />
Dec. 22<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Oren Polak Duo”<br />
Casey Jones Pub<br />
(417 E. Charles St., La<br />
Plata) – 9:30 p.m.<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Half Naked Trio”<br />
The Blue Dog Saloon<br />
(7940 Port Tobacco Road,<br />
Port Tobacco) – 8 p.m.<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Sam Grow”<br />
Ruddy Duck Brewery<br />
(13200 Dowell Road, Dowell)<br />
- 8 p.m.<br />
Friday, Dec. 23<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Neil Tracy Trio”<br />
Island Bar and Crab House<br />
(16810 Piney Point Rd.,<br />
Piney Point) – 7:30 p.m.<br />
Christmas Party & Live<br />
Music: “The Sam Grow<br />
Band”<br />
The Greene Turtle (6 St.<br />
Mary’s Avenue Suite<br />
104, La Plata) – 9 p.m.<br />
Live Music: “Silvertung<br />
Christmas Bash w/ the<br />
Black Dahlia”<br />
Memories Nightclub and<br />
Bar (2360 Old Washington<br />
Road, Waldorf) – 8 p.m.<br />
Live Music: “Dave and<br />
Kevin Trio”<br />
Ruddy Duck Brewery<br />
(13200 Dowell Road, Dowell)<br />
– 8 p.m.<br />
Live Music: “Natural<br />
Progression”<br />
Back Creek Bistro (14415<br />
Dowell Road, Dowell) – 6<br />
p.m.<br />
Live Music: “Diane Daly”<br />
The Westlawn Inn (9200<br />
Chesapeake Avenue, North<br />
Beach) – 8 p.m.<br />
Live Music: “No Green<br />
JellyBeanz”<br />
Big Dogs Paradise (28765<br />
Three Notch Road, Mechanicsville)<br />
– 9:30 p.m.<br />
Saturday,<br />
Dec. 24<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Groove Span”<br />
The Blue Dog Saloon<br />
(7940 Port Tobacco Road,<br />
Port Tobacco) – 6:30 p.m.<br />
Pajama Party<br />
w/ DJ Mike<br />
Apehangers Bar and Grill<br />
(9100 Crain Highway, Bel<br />
Alton) – 9 p.m.<br />
Sunday,<br />
Dec. 25<br />
Open<br />
Christmas Day<br />
Apehangers Bar and Grill<br />
(9100 Crain Highway, Bel<br />
Alton) – 2 p.m.<br />
Monday,<br />
Dec. 26<br />
Open Mic Night<br />
Rustic River Bar and Grill<br />
(40874 Merchants Lane,<br />
Leonardtown) – 5 p.m.<br />
Tuesday,<br />
Dec. 27<br />
Trivia Night<br />
Rustic River Bar and Grill<br />
(40874 Merchants Lane,<br />
Leonardtown) – 6:30 p.m.<br />
Open Mic Night<br />
Ruddy Duck Brewery<br />
(13200 Dowell Road, Dowell)<br />
– 6:30 p.m.<br />
Live Music: “Fair<br />
Warning”<br />
DB McMillan’s<br />
(23415 Three Notch Road,<br />
California) – 5 p.m.<br />
Wednesday,<br />
Dec. 28<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Wolf’s Hot Rods and<br />
Old Gas Blues Jam”<br />
Beach Cove Restaurant<br />
(8416 Bayside Road,<br />
Chesapeake Beach) –<br />
8 p.m.<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Acoustical Sounds”<br />
Martini’s Lounge (10553<br />
Theodore Green Boulevard,<br />
White Plains) – 8<br />
p.m.<br />
Live Music:<br />
“Mason Sebastian”<br />
DB McMillan’s (23415<br />
Three Notch Road, California)<br />
– 5 p.m.<br />
Karaoke<br />
w/ DJ Harry<br />
Big Dogs Paradise (28765<br />
Three Notch Road, Mechanicsville)<br />
– 7 p.m.<br />
Where’s the PARTy At?<br />
Is your bar or business hosting a special celebration on New Year’s Eve? Let us know when and where, so our readers can find the best spots<br />
in <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Maryland</strong> to ring in 2012. Please send detailed info to carriemunn@countytimes.net no later than Monday, Dec. 26.
Save ENERGY and<br />
Save MONEY this winter<br />
SMECO has a variety of programs that can help<br />
reduce your energy use and increase your savings.<br />
SMECO’s top ten ways to reduce heating costs<br />
10<br />
9<br />
8<br />
7<br />
6<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
Consider upgrading to high-efficiency heating equipment.<br />
Remove leaves and snow from around your heat pump.<br />
Open curtains and blinds during the day.<br />
Tune up your heating system annually.<br />
Insulate your attic and ductwork.<br />
Take advantage of SMECO’s energy efficiency programs<br />
and rebates.<br />
Schedule a Quick Home Energy Check-up.<br />
Change your air filter once a month.<br />
Set your programmable thermostat to 68°F.<br />
Weather-strip around doors and caulk around windows.<br />
Visit www.smeco.coop/save for updates, ideas,<br />
and more ways to save.<br />
This program supports the EmPOWER <strong>Maryland</strong> Energy Efficiency Act.