Caroline County

A pedestrian died after being struck by a car yesterday evening near Downes in Caroline County, Maryland State Police said. The accident occurred about 6 p.m. on Route 404 near Downes Station Road, said Sgt. Vernon Love. The identity of the victim was not available last night. Route 404 was closed after the accident, which troopers were continuing to investigate last night, Love said.

Jeffrey H. Douglas, a former Caroline County Department of Public Works supervisor, died of heart failure Wednesday at Seasons Hospice in Northwest Hospital. The Baltimore resident was 59. Born and raised in Lutherville, Mr. Douglas was a 1972 graduate of Dulaney High School, where he was an outstanding lacrosse player and kicker for the varsity football team. He attended the Naval Academy and Salisbury University. He moved to the Eastern Shore in 1978 and had lived in Still Pond, Denton and Preston.

DENTON -- "Caroline County came in first, unfortunately," sighed Margaret Myers, president of the three-member County Commission during yesterday's meeting.The "first" -- Caroline County's property assessments increased more than any other in the state last year -- has angered a lot of property owners and stirred up a small furor in this rural mid-Shore county, known for its rich soil and productive vegetable farms.Citizen complaints and letters of appeal led the County Commission yesterday to invite the local assessor and the director of the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation to a future meeting and explain how assessments are made.

Marshall E. Price, a Caroline County blacksmith, met his fate at the end of a rope wielded by a lynch mob on July 2, 1895, for the murder of a 13-year-old girl, Sallie E. Dean, whom he accosted as she made her way to school. Earlier this month, with a friend, Joe Coale, I went to the Eastern Shore to spend a perfectly wonderful sun-splashed autumn day with former Gov. Harry R. Hughes, who lives in Denton. After talking for a while in the den of his home, Hughes suggested a tour of some of the county's historic sites.

Worshipers arriving for 8 a.m. Mass yesterday at the Holy Child Roman Catholic Chapel in Bethlehem were greeted by broken windows and a smashed statue of the Christ child, the work of a vandal or vandals, according to a spokesman for the Caroline County Sheriff's Department.Despite the vandalism, services were held at the white chapel with blue shutters, which was dedicated in 1962 and sits along busy Route 331.The church is more than 100 years old and originally was near its current site, said the Rev. William Patrick Mathesius, pastor for two years.

DENTON -- By the time Gov. William Donald Schaefer rode out of this Caroline County town yesterday, he had left behind so many gifts that one would think his bus was pulled by reindeer.The governor pledged last Friday to return with state aid after touring an apartment complex where an angry crowd clashed with white police officers over the arrest of a 17-year-old black youth late Thursday.Last week's violence, in which three officers were hurt and a small building was set ablaze, was the second outbreak of racial unrest in this rural Eastern Shore town in five months.

DENTON -- Black teen-agers and parents gathered last night at the Caroline County library to tell the Maryland Human Relations Commission (HRC) about attacks on black youths by members of Denton's all-white police force and town firefighters in January.The hearing was called by the commission, which has been investigating complaints of excessive force being used against the youths following a Jan. 24 dance at the fire hall.Youths and parents told the HRC that nightsticks, chemical Mace and fire hoses were used to disperse black teens singled out by the police and firefighters after fighting broke out among white youths and prompted an early end to the biracial event.

Carroll County is losing one of its most respected planners, Helen M. Spinelli, to Maryland Rural Development Corp., a nonprofit company that helps small communities with water and sewer management.The chance to improve life in Caroline County, her home, and eliminate an arduous commute made the decision to leave easier for Spinelli, who joined Carroll's Planning Department in 1990."After six years, it is really hard to go," she said. "I have made a lot of friends and grown a lot professionally."

MARYDEL -- When the Rev. Chris LaBarge first came to this hardscrabble little town that straddles the Mason-Dixon Line, local officials told him there were virtually no Hispanics here. A decade later, 250 people pack a white frame church every Sunday night to hear "Father Chris" say Mass in Spanish. His Eastern Shore parish offers Latino immigrants their own Sunday school, Bible study, social groups, English classes and computer training. LaBarge estimates that Caroline County today is home to at least 2,000 Latinos from Guatemala and Mexico.

Whatever plans the residents of Preston and Federalsburg had for this coming weekend have likely gone out the window, as folks from the tiny Caroline County towns pack up and head for Williamsport, Pa., to watch their team play in the Little League World Series. "It's all been overwhelming, but everybody is really happy," said Tina Nagel, the mother of J.T. Nagel, an outfielder for the South Caroline team that beat Deep Run Valley of Hilltown, Pa., 4-1, Sunday in the Mid-Atlantic regional final in Bristol, Conn.

The governor has announced  the 17 dishes that will be featured at his (invitation-only) July 21 cookout, the launch event for Maryland's Buy Local Challenge Week, July 23-31. Recipes were submitted by chef/producer teams and selected for their creativity, availability of ingredients, geographic representation, and maximum use of local ingredients.  For instance, Bill Crouse of Chef's Expressions and David Smith of Springfield Farms will be bringing a Springfield Farms roulade of spring lamb with pine nuts and apricots with an heirloom tomato gazpacho.

EASTON - Frances Kostkowski cried when Boater's World decided to close the Denton distribution center where she spent 14 years filling orders for boating accessories. The 57-year-old widow cried again while sitting inside a Panera Bread on Route 50 in Easton and contemplating an uncertain future in the face of an unstable job market. "I can't live on minimum wage," Kostkowski said. "I can't pay the rent, the electric bill, the car payments, the car insurance on minimum wage." That distress is gripping residents across the state as the recession's unabated sweep leaves an accumulation of closings and layoffs in its wake.

Like a lot of root vegetables, turnips get little respect. Thanks to years of verbal jabs from comedians, we believe a rube is someone who just "fell off a turnip truck." Even deer diss turnips, preferring to munch on beets. "The deer will use their hooves to dig up the beets," said Joe Bartenfelder, who grows turnips and other vegetables on his family's 20-acre farm in Baltimore County and on 100 acres in Caroline County. "With the turnips, the deer just eat the greens." Yet those who know turnips love them, realizing that while they may not look slick and sophisticated, they have a natural, home-grown sweetness.

South Carroll's run as the Class 1A state titlist ended last night when the defending champion Cavaliers lost to Poolesville of Montgomery County, 25-19, 25-19, 25-13, in the Class 1A state volleyball semifinals at Ritchie Coliseum in College Park. The No. 15 Cavaliers (13-5) were led by Tianna Quiambao-Panas' 26 assists. Lindsey Will and Mary Harshman contributed six kills each for South Carroll. "They were the best team we've faced all year," Cavaliers coach Marcia Kunkel said. "They played great defense, and although we gave it our all, they were the better team."

FEDERALSBURG --Five teenage boys have been charged with raping a 12-year-old girl in the dugout of a baseball field in this small Eastern Shore town. According to charging documents, the girl told police she went to the park Feb. 9 planning to have sex with her 15-year-old boyfriend but changed her mind. She was then attacked by other youths, who had been watching the couple, the documents say. The girl told her parents about a week later.

TODD POINT -- Phil Spedden is a regular on the "liars bench" next to a roaring wood stove where locals have gathered daily for nearly 60 years in John Lewis' Grocery. They gossip, swap stories, sip coffee and wrangle over politics as somebody throws another log on the fire. This year, the talk is often about the unusually lively race in Maryland's 1st Congressional District, where two state legislators are trying to oust Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest in the Republican primary. Spedden, a retired farmer, said various views can be heard about that among the wood-stove gang here in Dorchester County.

In Caroline County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, the term "high tech" might seem a foreign concept in the great expanses of cornfields that separate the handful of small towns. But parked beside a narrow road in Greensboro -- population 1,750 -- police Chief Jeffrey A. Jackson is sending an instant message across the Internet and checking criminal records on his computer, all while sitting in his steel gray cruiser, a 1996 Crown Victoria. Several miles away in Denton -- population 3,000 -- Kevin Gillespie, director of the county's emergency medical services, is discussing plans to visit a medical technology company near the headquarters of Microsoft Corp.

RIDGELY -- Berry lovers start early. Before the sun has burned away the morning mist in Mike Musachio's 6-acre berry patch, you can hear the soft chunking sound of blueberries picked at their peak being dropped in plastic pails.By 8: 30 a.m., half a dozen berry-pickers are toiling among the 6-foot-high blueberry bushes. With perspiring faces and blue-stained fingers, they work down row after row in one of summer's sweetest (and sweatiest) rituals: U-Pick blueberries."You can't get any fresher than this," said Rose Doster.

Caroline County : Denton Teacher charged with child sex abuse An eighth-grade teacher has been arrested on child sex abuse charges, the Caroline County sheriff's office said. Investigators said Lee Holmes, 25, of Greensboro, a teacher at Lockerman Middle School in Denton, is charged with having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old female student. Police said Holmes became a suspect Tuesday night after the girl was dropped off at her home in Marydel after leaving without permission.

A pedestrian died after being struck by a car yesterday evening near Downes in Caroline County, Maryland State Police said. The accident occurred about 6 p.m. on Route 404 near Downes Station Road, said Sgt. Vernon Love. The identity of the victim was not available last night. Route 404 was closed after the accident, which troopers were continuing to investigate last night, Love said.