Baton Rouge

On October 9, 2003, DR. CARVILLE V. EARLE, of Baton Rouge, LA., formerly of Catonsville. Loving husband of Mary Lou Earle (nee Curlett). Loving son of Doris and the late Carville R. Earle of Catonsville, Md. Devoted father of Richard and wife Jennifer, James and wife Heather, Randy and wife Stephanie and Elizabeth Earle. Also survived by a brother, Jerry Earle and his wife Kathy and 10 grandchildren. Dr. Earle, a historical geographer was a former professor at UMBC, Balto County, Md. He also taught at Miami of Ohio and Louisiana State University.

Winthrop P. Baker Jr., 72, a former president of Westinghouse Broadcasting and a broadcast pioneer in Maryland and elsewhere, has died. He was 72. Mr. Baker, who died June 7 at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut, began his broadcasting career in Louisiana in 1954 as a director for WJNR-TV in New Orleans. He then worked as a producer for WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge and program director for KLFY-TV in Lafayette. In the 1960s, Baker worked at television stations in Maryland, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh before becoming general manager of WBZ-TV in Boston in 1968.

BATON ROUGE, La. - It was almost 7 p.m. when the phone rang, and Hong Im Ballenger should have been home from her shift at the Beauty Depot. Come quickly, a co-worker told James Ballenger. There was an accident. Ballenger climbed into his gray pickup. He rushed to the store his wife had managed for almost a year, where she sold shampoos and barrettes and fished out change from her own wallet if a customer came up short. As he drove, he prayed. Whatever had happened, he thought, they would be OK. They had been married for 20 years.

Authorities linked a Sept. 14 shooting outside a Silver Spring liquor store to the two suspects in the string of deadly sniper attacks yesterday, putting the Army veteran and his teen-age companion in the Washington region nearly three weeks earlier than previously known. The shooting outside Hillandale Beer and Wine wounded a 22-year-old clerk as he helped lock up the store and stretched the number of shooting episodes tied to the sniper suspects to 17, including 13 killed and five injured in five states and Washington, D.C. Authorities continue examining other unsolved crimes in retracing the trail of John Allen Muhammad, 41, and Lee Boyd Malvo, 17, as they zigzagged in recent months from the West Coast to the Washington Beltway, to the Gulf Coast and back to the nation's capital.

The cross-country death toll that police attribute to an Army veteran and his teen-age traveling companion reached 13 yesterday as authorities in Baton Rouge, La., linked the rifle used in the Washington-area sniper slayings to the unsolved killing of a beauty shop worker in late September. Law enforcement officials say the number could continue to climb. Police across the country are reviewing unsolved crimes to see if they could be the work of the two suspects in the sniper case who authorities say left a deadly trail in five states and Washington, D.C., as they traveled from the West Coast to Maryland.

William Kenan Witherspoon, a lawyer who specialized in bankruptcy and taxation, died of cancer Sunday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. He was 49 and lived in Roland Park. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, La., he was known as "Spoon." He earned a degree in accounting from Louisiana State University. He was a certified public accountant before earning a master's degree from Georgetown University Law Center. While in Washington, Mr. Witherspoon met his future wife, the former Heather Margaret Shettle, a Towson lawyer.

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.

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.

The South holds plenty of untold stories. One of them is that Margaret Mitchell wrote almost all of "Gone With the Wind," and conjured up the world's most famous plantation house, while dwelling in a cramped apartment on the ground floor of an 1899 Tudor-style urban Atlanta home. She called it "the Dump."Yet Tara, that grand plantation Mitchell built from fantasy in her 1936 novel, stands taller in the American popular imagination than Gatsby's mansion, sturdier than the Little House on the Prairie.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- On Corporate Boulevard here -- above offices of an insurance company, an accountant and the Louisiana Tax Commission -- Silkk the Shocker looks at designs for his next album cover. Two camouflage-wearing brothers, 7 and 8, who perform under the name Lil Soldiers, practice a rap about thug life and their mother.On a table behind the heavily fortified door is the green uniform worn in videos by C-Murder. In place of "U.S. ARMY," a label in front reads simply: "NO LIMIT.""Yo, Tevester," says attorney Edwin Hawkins to business manager Tevester Scott.