Baltimore County

Michael Greenebaum and Jon Sevel had been running buddies for years, covering some 1,200 miles and three Marine Corps Marathons, when they decided to establish a race on their home turf in Baltimore County. There was never any doubt about which race: a half-marathon. Despite an odd length at 13.1 miles and a lack of elitist appeal, the half has become a full-blown craze among runners, experienced and new. The number of those running in general has been booming for the past 15 years. But half-marathons have been the fastest-growing road race in recent years, according to Running USA Inc., a Ventura, Calif.

Baltimore County's list of requests for this year's General Assembly is focused on education and public safety, County Executive James T. Smith Jr. told state legislators at a meeting yesterday in Towson. Despite reduced state revenue projections and the impact of the national economic collapse, he urged lawmakers to continue to support the legislature's $325 million commitment to a statewide public-school construction program for fiscal year 2010. County public schools have requested $84.5 million in state funds for construction and renovations, he said, including projects at Parkville High School, Catonsville High and Milford Mill Academy that would account for $20.4 million.

A group of Baltimore County parents whose children participated in an online learning program that the school system did not fund this year has formed an organization to push for access to alternative education throughout the state. The founders of Emerging Minds of Maryland, which is incorporating this week, were among several parents who for months repeatedly urged the school board to find money to continue a one-year pilot program. The online Connections Academy gave their children a chance to learn in ways the conventional classroom did not - and at their own pace, the parents said.

Members of the Baltimore Gun Tracing Task Force raided a Glen Burnie pawn shop and the owner's Northwest Baltimore home yesterday, seizing more than 250 guns and multiple crates of ammunition two weeks after the owner pleaded guilty to a felony. Police said the owner of B&A Pawn was not charged with a crime yesterday. The state police licensing division revoked the firearm dealer's license for B&A Pawn yesterday, and investigators from the task force - made up of officers from Baltimore, Baltimore County and the state - are examining weapons and reviewing sales records looking for possible violations.

Keith Church left the Navy in 1974 after a two-year stint, worked for years as a maintenance mechanic and never considered asking for veterans benefits. But in December, Church, 54, was jobless, coping with health problems and on the brink of homelessness - "couch surfing" with friends, he says - when he turned to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for help. Within a few months, he moved into an apartment, thanks to a VA program that started in Maryland this year to help homeless veterans.

Robert C. Chance, a pioneering Harford County ecologist and retired high school teacher, received a two-year suspended sentence and was placed on 18 months of supervised probation yesterday for growing marijuana and possessing psychedelic mushrooms last year on his Darlington farm. "This is a 62-year-old man who showed poor judgment," said Baltimore County Circuit Judge John G. Turnbull II as he announced the ruling. "I certainly don't think he's a threat to the community. If anything, he is a threat to himself."

Baltimore Co. couple die in Florida auto crash A Baltimore County couple were killed in an automobile accident in West Miami on Wednesday night, according to the family and reports in the Miami Herald. Robert Kirkpatrick and his wife, Paulette, both 62, of Phoenix, were heading to the Everglades when their Chevrolet Cobalt crashed into a Toyota Tacoma driven by a 54-year-old man who had been arrested three times on drunken-driving charges and whose license had been suspended, the Miami Herald reported.

At 68, Aurelia Dillon gives no thought to retirement. She needs to work and wants to work, she says, if only she could find a job. Laid off from a Carney flower shop Thanksgiving week, she has been looking for employment ever since. Dillon, a widow, has pension and other income, lately boosted by unemployment benefits. But she cares for two grown children: a mentally disabled son and a brain-injured daughter. She has hefty food costs, too, and a car payment. Her latest monthly electric bill was a sizzling $394.

Police identify victim of shooting in Dundalk A 28-year-old Dundalk man who was fatally shot while sitting in his car late Sunday was identified Monday by Baltimore County police as James Faulcon of the 3400 block of Dunhaven Road. Faulcon was wounded by someone who approached the car on Dunkirk Road near Cornwall Road just before 11 p.m. and fired several shots after Faulcon rolled down the window, police said. Two other people were in the car at the time of the shooting, police said.

Officer gets probation in hit-and-run case A Baltimore police officer who admitted leaving the scene of an accident in her Canton neighborhood received one year of unsupervised probation and was ordered to pay $250 in court costs yesterday, prosecutors said. The Baltimore Sun reported last month that the Baltimore state's attorney's office was reviewing how police and prosecutors handled the case, in which retired city police officer and District Court Commissioner Anthony Swiderski said he had to press charges more than two months after the 2007 accident because police had not pursued the matter.

Baltimore County officials hope to piggyback on Montgomery County's existing contract for the lease and installation of speed-monitoring cameras. The County Council is to review the proposal, estimated to cost $179,925 a month, at its session Monday. Montgomery County's contract was awarded through a competitive process to ACS State & Local Solutions Inc., one of four bidders. The Dallas-based company would install the cameras at 15 county school locations, determined by Baltimore County police, and provide citation processing, statistical reporting, site assessments and maintenance.

Prisoners allege guard turned search into 'strip tease' 2 The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has asked Anne Arundel County officials to investigate inmates' claims that they are forced to remove clothing one article at a time for body searches that are akin to a "strip tease" at the detention center in Glen Burnie. The ACLU said in a letter to the jail administrator Oct. 13 that inmates allege that a jail guard conducts searches that amount to "unusually invasive and intentionally degrading strip searches."

16-year-old is sought in robbery at gunpoint Police in Baltimore County are looking for a 16-year-old boy who they say robbed a Halethorpe house at gunpoint last week and has since threatened to kill the home's residents. The teen, identified as Bryan Sheppard, of the 900 block of Seagull Ave. in Brooklyn, is considered to be armed and dangerous, police said. Police said Tuesday that a man forced his way into a house in the 2900 block of Lakebrook Circle in Halethorpe at about 3 p.m. on Oct. 12. He produced a handgun and took property from the people who were there at the time, a police statement said.

While saying he recognized the state's fiscal problems, Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. pushed for several critical highway projects and upgrades to mass transit during a meeting with Maryland transportation officials Monday. Road and highway maintenance "remains essential both to the quality of life in our communities and to helping us to rebound and promote economic growth," Smith said. While making annual visits to each jurisdiction, transportation officials are delivering the same message: Only projects already under construction will be funded, while all others are deferred.

Marie W. Kasckow, a former longtime Baltimore county public school vocal and general music teacher who enjoyed sharing her love of music with her students, died of pancreatic cancer Oct. 8 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. She was 82. Marie Wiedorn, the daughter of a noted landscape architect and a teacher, was born in Cleveland and was raised there and in New Orleans. After graduating from Sophie Wright High School in New Orleans when she was 16, Mrs. Kasckow entered the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester as a viola and piano major, earning her bachelor's degree in 1947.

Maryland Department of Transportation officials are making their annual visit to Towson today to discuss roads projects and their status in the state's six-year capital funding program. Given the economic downturn and the state's fiscal woes, Baltimore County officials have limited their expectations. Like the other jurisdictions across the state, the county has developed a priority roads list, which includes improvements to the Beltway, I-83, and major arteries such as Pulaski Highway and Reisterstown Road, as well as more streetscapes and sidewalks.

Using a rope harness, Baltimore County fire and rescue crews staged a dramatic and technically difficult extraction of an injured worker from the bottom of a 120-foot coal silo Friday night and sent him on his way to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Lt. Lynn Mullahey said managers at the Constellation Energy plant off Carroll Island Road in eastern Baltimore County called 911 at 6:13 p.m. to report that a contractor had fallen from the top of the silo. Mullahey said an advanced technical rescue team and crews from all over the county responded to the call, dealing with a cold, steady rain.

At first the connection seems vague between the bustling Saturday morning 32nd Street Farmers Market and an Episcopal church basement filled with energetic preschoolers from around the world. But it is there, one of the social threads that bind communities together. The vendors at the Waverly market pay rent. The market association collects the rent and after paying its bills, gives grants, usually about $500, to nonprofits working in the community. "We usually award $8,000 to $10,000 a year," said Vernon Rey, president of the market.

WASHINGTON -The enormous federal stimulus program is delivering billions of dollars across Maryland in uneven waves, a Baltimore Sun analysis shows, with some struggling areas faring better than others. Parts of the state have benefited from Washington's desire to spend money quickly, with ready-to-go projects collecting early infusions of money. And Maryland as a whole has come out ahead, thanks in part to long-term investments in science and education that are a major part of the stimulus law. Government officials say recovery aid has been targeted to places with the greatest need, and for the most part that appears to be the case.

A woman in her 20s was shot at a northern Baltimore County gas station Friday night, according to Baltimore County police. Officers responded to an Exxon station in the 300 block of Mount Carmel Road in the Hereford area at 8:16 p.m., police said. They found a woman who had been shot in the back. The woman was taken to Sinai Hospital, according to police.