Annie Oakley

"Learn to ride a horse — not merely hold on. "Learn to shoot. Aim high and never give up. "Service. "Love."

"Learn to ride a horse — not merely hold on. "Learn to shoot. Aim high and never give up. "Service. "Love."

Annie Oakley, the gal who became legend because of her sharpshooting skills, will be honored in Cambridge Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the first Annie Oakley Riverside Jamboree. The home that she built there in 1913 will be open for tours, and visitors will hear tales of her days with "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" when Sitting Bull dubbed her "Little Sure Shot."On Saturday, the festival will feature an American Indian Pow-Wow of the Nause Waiwash tribe at Sailwinds Park with Native American crafts, drums and dance, food and festivities along with a ceremony to honor Annie's relatives.

Well along in rehearsal at the Naval Academy's Mahan Hall, the cast of "Annie Get Your Gun" seemed ideally suited to American composer Irving Berlin's musical story of American heroine Annie Oakley. At a recent rehearsal, cast members leaped from their seats onto the stage when the music director summoned them for the opening number, "There's No Business Like Show Business." Berlin would have been pleased by these enthusiastic midshipmen - few of whom were even born at the time of his death in 1989 at age 101. A World War I veteran who toured with servicemen during World War II, Berlin wrote "Annie Get Your Gun" shortly after returning from the war. The musical tells the story of sharpshooting country girl Annie Oakley, who joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and became world-famous for her marksmanship, defeating vaudevillian/sharpshooter Frank Butler in competition.

As the band thumped out "The Girl I Left Behind Me," a tiny woman in a Stetson and fringed dress rode into the packed arena, rifles blazing. The sharpshooting that had made her a superstar on two continents enthralled the audience. Galloping around the ring on horseback, she aimed her six-shooters with a flourish, hitting a bull's-eye again and again.She shouldered her rifle backward, sighted through a mirror and shattered 20 glass, feather-filled balls tossed in the air. She put a deadeye hole through brass tokens held at arm's length by an assistant and shot out the pips in playing cards.

It's time that sex workers get the respect they deserve, says an industry veteran who calls herself Annie Oakley. Prostitutes, strippers, Internet models and others in the sex industry are just as entitled to safe working conditions and fair wages as anyone providing a service, Oakley, 32, argues. If you go The Sex Workers' Art Show takes place at 7 and 9:30 tonight at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave. The show is for ages 18 and older. Tickets are $8 for members; $10 for nonmembers.

Tomorrow, an upbeat article of Americana opens at Anne Arundel Community College's Pascal Center for the Performing Arts when Moonlight Troupers' 25-member cast brings history to life in Irving Berlin's Annie, Get Your Gun. The musical tells the story of Annie Oakley, the sharp-shooting country girl who joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and became famous for her marksmanship, beating vaudevillian-sharpshooter Frank Butler in competition. If those three characters are legends, so is Berlin.

The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America By Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster. 256 pages. $26. Few famous Americans have been more misunderstood than William Frederick Cody, the plainsman-turned-showman who was indisputably the nation's first superstar. "The Last of the Great Scouts" died nearly 90 years ago, but he is always with us, as the novelist Larry McMurtry persuasively argues in The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America.

It would have been almost un-American not to love this show. Annie Get Your Gun, as presented by Anne Arundel Community College's Moonlight Troupers during a nearly sold-out run, featured Irving Berlin's great tunes well-sung, a lively orchestra, a stage full of cowboys - and a couple of authentic American heroes looking for love. For two weekends at AACC's Pascal Center, a youthful, high-spirited cast of 25 brought to life the story of Annie Oakley, a country girl whose sharpshooting skills brought her into vaudeville and to worldwide fame.

You've got to like Irving Berlin's musical "Annie Get Your Gun" if only for its sheer political incorrectness.In this show about Annie Oakley, stone-faced Indians say "How," the leading man avers that his bride-to-be must be as "pink and as soft as a nursery," and the heroine can win the man of her dreams only by losing a shooting match to him on purpose.But what it lacks in egalitarian consciousness, it makes up for in hits. For, as the Chesapeake Music Hall's current production of "Annie Get Your Gun" reminds us, the Berlin standards just keep a-comin' from one end of the score to the other.

It's time that sex workers get the respect they deserve, says an industry veteran who calls herself Annie Oakley. Prostitutes, strippers, Internet models and others in the sex industry are just as entitled to safe working conditions and fair wages as anyone providing a service, Oakley, 32, argues. If you go The Sex Workers' Art Show takes place at 7 and 9:30 tonight at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave. The show is for ages 18 and older. Tickets are $8 for members; $10 for nonmembers.

The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America By Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster. 256 pages. $26. Few famous Americans have been more misunderstood than William Frederick Cody, the plainsman-turned-showman who was indisputably the nation's first superstar. "The Last of the Great Scouts" died nearly 90 years ago, but he is always with us, as the novelist Larry McMurtry persuasively argues in The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America.

As Women's History Month draws to a close, visitors to the Cambridge and Bucktown area of Dorchester County can explore the lives of two Eastern Shore women who became legends of American and Maryland history: Harriet Tubman and Annie Oakley. Tubman's spirit still breathes through the Bucktown Village Store (Bestpitch Ferry Road in Bucktown; call 410-901-9255 for an appointment). Owners Susan and Jay Meredith bought the store in 1997 because Jay's great-great-grandfather and his great-grandfather had owned it. Then they learned the history attached to it: Tubman, born about 1820, frequented the shop to buy food and other necessities, and an incident there affected her for the rest of her life.

In Baltimore City Off-duty officer fatally shoots man in robbery attempt An off-duty Baltimore police officer shot and killed an unidentified man early yesterday during an attempted robbery in Reservoir Hill, the department reported. Officer Althaniel Dailey, 39, who joined the department in February, had just driven with his brother to a house in the 800 block of Lennox St. to pick up a friend when two men suddenly appeared in the darkness, police said. One of the men put a gun to the brother's head in an apparent robbery attempt, according to police.

The stage pulsated with energy at St. John's College during the weekend when the Talent Machine Company opened Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, featuring its younger performers in the 7-to-14 age group. With its depiction of authentic American icons such as Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull, the 1946 classic proved an ideal choice for this 50-member cast. Every member of the cast exuded high-voltage energy with talent to match and a high degree of professionalism that sprang from rigorous rehearsal.

It would have been almost un-American not to love this show. Annie Get Your Gun, as presented by Anne Arundel Community College's Moonlight Troupers during a nearly sold-out run, featured Irving Berlin's great tunes well-sung, a lively orchestra, a stage full of cowboys - and a couple of authentic American heroes looking for love. For two weekends at AACC's Pascal Center, a youthful, high-spirited cast of 25 brought to life the story of Annie Oakley, a country girl whose sharpshooting skills brought her into vaudeville and to worldwide fame.

The exclusive, pre-Broadway engagement of "Annie Get Your Gun" is currently in previews at Washington's Kennedy Center, with an official opening scheduled for Jan. 7. Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters stars as Annie Oakley in this classic Irving Berlin musical, whose score includes such chestnuts as "There's No Business Like Show Business," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" and "They Say It's Wonderful."The production features a new book by Peter Stone ("1776" and "Titanic"), based on the original by Herbert and Dorothy Fields.

Tomorrow, an upbeat article of Americana opens at Anne Arundel Community College's Pascal Center for the Performing Arts when Moonlight Troupers' 25-member cast brings history to life in Irving Berlin's Annie, Get Your Gun. The musical tells the story of Annie Oakley, the sharp-shooting country girl who joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and became famous for her marksmanship, beating vaudevillian-sharpshooter Frank Butler in competition. If those three characters are legends, so is Berlin.