Baton Rouge

Ed and Jackie Lanehart, retired and avid tenpin bowlers, are Ellicott City residents who do their league bowling at Brunswick Normandy and their tournament bowling wherever there's a tournament.During a recent seven-week period, Ed Lanehart played in tournaments in Tulsa, Okla.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Las Vegas, Nev. His wife joined him for the last two trips."Last year there were no Senior Olympics and the ABC Nationals were held in Cincinnati so that's where we went, and of course, the Hi Rollers in Vegas," he said.

A 350-LB. BLACK bear named No Neck walked all the way from the Florida Panhandle across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana until he got to Baton Rouge. That's the longest walk any recorded bear ever took, and he would have kept walking to the Atchafalaya Basin where about 300 black bears live.No Neck was apparently looking for a mate and thought the Atchafalaya community had possibilities. There are so few bears left, they must sense each other in the empty air; the bear frequency must ring with the poignant signals of their dying.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- When David Duke entered a hotel ballroom in Baton Rouge, Jo Ann Jernigan, a retired nurse and lifelong Democrat, jumped to her feet and applauded."

John Darrington Gandy Jr., a retired general manager of a risk management company, died of a heart attack Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 76 and lived in Timonium. Born in Jackson, Miss., he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Mississippi and also attended law school there. In 1953, he married Virginia "Ginger" Tucker in Baton Rouge, La., where he was living at the time. Mr. Gandy served from 1954 to 1956 in the Army, stationed at Fort Benning, Ga. He and his wife later moved to Cockeysville, where they lived for 30 years before moving to Timonium six years ago. He worked as the general manager of the Baltimore office of Crawford & Co., a risk management company, from 1969 until his retirement in 1989.

TALLAHASSEE - What a grand exercise in role reversal. Democrats are arguing local control - a traditionally Republican mantra. Republicans are learning how to protest from the AFL-CIO. GOP masses are boarding buses, hollering for the cameras and storming public buildings. "Republicans don't behave like this," said Alex Helwig, 30, who traveled eight hours in a minivan from Baton Rouge, La., to stand outside the state Capitol here all weekend yelling and waving signs. "We're a new breed," said Patty Birkett, 49, a librarian who joined him. Maybe it started with President Clinton, who declared himself a New Democrat and got behind welfare reform.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Their translucent eyelids are rarely open, but these babies have already seen much of the world. They've flown in military choppers and forded rivers of sewage. Tiny New Orleans natives, they survived Katrina's wrath in their first days of life, or, like Skylar Burke, in the process of being born. His mother's contractions were less than two minutes apart Aug. 29 when the National Guard moved her, barefoot and wearing only a T-shirt, from her flooding New Orleans apartment to the Superdome.

Turning 55 was a big moment in John Elliott's athletic life.It meant he was old enough to compete in the Maryland Senior Olympics.Elliott took full advantage of his first appearance in the games by winning everything he entered -- the five- and 10-kilometer and one-mile cycling events and the five- and 10-kilometer and 1,500-meter runs.In the 1,500, his final race, his victory margin of 50 meters served as testimony to his domination of the 55-59 age group in all six events.Elliott, chief of the Conflict Analysis Center of the Army Concepts Analysis Agency in Bethesda, was one of the standouts in the 14th annual Maryland Senior Olympics that completed a two-day run yesterday at Towson State.

Victoria Waidner remembers when her grandfather, an athlete in the first modern Olympiad in 1896 in Athens, would take her into his backyard and show her how to throw the odd-shaped orb called a discus.Little did Mrs. Waidner realize that she had begun training for an Olympics that would take place almost 100 years after the games in which her grandfather competed.Last month, the 55-year-old Mayo Elementary School principal qualified for the national Senior Olympics in Baton Rouge, La., by winning three medals in Maryland's Senior Olympics.

Anthony S. Moranto, 73, BGE supervisor, deacon Anthony S. Moranto, a retired Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. supervisor and Roman Catholic deacon, died of cancer Jan. 25 at his Hamilton home. He was 73. He worked 40 years at BGE, retiring in 1993 as a meter installation supervisor. He had been an ordained deacon for 30 years, with duties that included officiating at weddings, preaching at funerals and conducting baptisms. Friends recalled his Sunday sermons at St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church in Hamilton, where a Mass was offered Monday for him. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, La., he was a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps and a drill instructor at Camp Lejeune, N.C., many years ago. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, the former Catherine Schreiber; two sons, Joe Moranto of Perry Hall and Lou Moranto of Gainesville, Va.; four daughters, Mary Brewer of Columbia, Cathy Haut of Carney, Therese Cosgrove of Sykesville and Beth Nash of Bel Air; three brothers, Phillip Moranto, Louis Moranto and R.B. Moranto, all of Baton Rouge; a sister, Tina Bonano of Baton Rouge; and 13 grandchildren.

The foreign exchange visit, lasting a few weeks to a year, is a wonderful experience for most high school students fortunate enough to make one. They see a culture not their own, make new friends they could never have imagined, and learn something of the world hands-on. But how many families would send cherished children to a country of grave peril, where strangers might kill them over a small misunderstanding, where violence comes explosively when least expected?That is the question Japanese parents are asking, after Yoshihiro Hattori, 16, was shot to death in Baton Rouge, La., while trying to find a Halloween costume party to which he had been invited.