Chapel

THE ROLAND PARK Second Presbyterian Church looked absolutely stunning last Saturday for the wedding of Natalia Pia Melanie Sommer and Richard Matthew Dohler. Thousands of wildflowers, miles of lace ribbons and tulle, and window sills decorated with Singapore orchids set the stage for the nuptials of the daughter of pop music star Donna Summer and her first husband, Helmut Sommer,and the son of Dick and Bonna Dohler, he's an Ellicott City builder.The church was filled with the music of German trumpeteer Langston Fitzgerald and selections of Bach, Beethoven and Vivaldi, played by the church's music director Margaret Budd on the organ.

Ayres Chapel Road at Jackson Branch near Norrisville has been closed to traffic for about one week, effective Monday, the Harford County Department of Public Works announced. The work will include the removal and replacement of a damaged beam on the bridge. The section of the road affected is between Route 23 (Norrisville Road) and Harford Creamery Road.. Questions about the temporary road closure should be addressed to Dan Svrjcek, Harford County Department of Public Works, at 410-638-3545, ext. 1392.

The Durand-Williams wedding came off at 1100 hours. Sharp.The first in a production line of 30 post-graduation ceremonies at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis had no singing relatives, no poetry readings, no rose petals in the aisles yesterday. Just plenty of crossed swords, military music and guests named "sir.""My fiancee told me to get the earliest time I could," said Ensign Kyle P. Durand, 23, as he fidgeted in his dress white uniform minutes before the wedding. "I just really want to have her with me here.

In a meeting with the editorial board of The Baltimore Sun , the next Baltimore County schools chief, S. Dallas Dance, said he supports the controversial decision to build a new school in Mays Chapel. The school, he said, is needed to relieve overcrowding.  He said he will never shy away from making unpopular decisions, but that no matter how difficult the decision "it does not give you the right not to listen to people. "   Dance will take over on July 1, but he plans to visit the county several times between now and then.

Bob Ward Homes has opened a model at Chapel Glen in Aberdeen, where prices start at just more than $100,000 for a single-family home on a quarter-acre lot. Gas heat and public water and sewer are standard features in the Harford County community.At $102,900 for 1,048 square feet, the Dover is the smallest and least-expensive home offered at Chapel Glen.This rancher has a 16-by-13-foot living room, foyer with guest closet, 13-by-12-foot kitchen, utility room, full hall bath, 13-by-13-foot master bedroom and 12-by-8-foot second bedroom.

Years after walking the aisles and kneeling in the pews of St. Michael's Chapel at the Hannah More Academy, Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens and other alumnae returned there yesterday for the reopening of the restored Reisterstown landmark. For Owens and many others, the ceremony at St. Michael's meant more than the renovation of a landmark. Owens spoke about how the chapel was a fixture in her days at the Episcopal boarding school for girls. "This chapel was the heart of the school and meant so much to thousands of women," she said.

On a hill above busy Wilkens Avenue, the granite and buff-brick church with its red-tiled dome and green-patinated cupola stands out among the buildings of Charlestown Retirement Community.Unknown to many of the thousands of motorists who pass, however, is that below the 68-foot-high dome is one of the area's best kept secrets: an architectural and artistic masterpiece, the Renaissance-style Chapel of Our Lady of the Angels."It's Baltimore's treasure of art, mosaics, marble and stained glass, unrivaled in this country -- and very few people know it's here," said the Rev. Leo J. Larrivee, 43, who came as a seminarian in 1969 to the Catonsville campus when it was still St. Charles College and Seminary.

God's Trucking Ministry hopes to rev up the spiritual energy in Jessup tomorrow, at an all-day gospel concert and dedication for the ministry's chapel that is expected to draw a crowd of 200 people.The gospel groups Hearts Afire, of Preston, and Brooklyn Boys, of Baltimore, are among the performers scheduled for the free event, which will run from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the truck trailer-turned-chapel on U.S. 1 behind Truckers Inn. The chapel dedication will be at 11:30 a.m."I'm really excited about it," said the ministry's chaplain, the Rev. James Brown.

LINDA WARD AND DAVE HOFFMANNLike so many brides before her, Linda Ward peered out the window of the upstairs dressing room at the Historic Little Wedding Chapel in Elkton and tried to catch a glimpse of her groom.Though Linda couldn't see him, a grinning David "Dave" Hoffmann was waiting in the tiny vestibule downstairs, crowded in with his family while the Rev. Frank T. Smith performed another couple's wedding ceremony.Dave and Linda were one of 13 couples Smith married on Valentine's Day. That's a far cry from the 22 couples he married on Valentine's Day 1998 ("but that was a Saturday," the minister says by way of explanation)

Surrounded by dozens of commercial 18-wheelers on the parking lot behind Truckers Inn in Jessup is a very eye-catching trailer.Large crosses decorate the exterior of the immobile trailer, and big lettering on the side announces: "God's Trucking Ministry" and "Chapel."Inside are eight wooden chairs grouped together and a lectern, where the Rev. James R. Brown often stands.The ordained minister uses the trailer-turned-chapel to counsel and uplift men and women truckers who are constantly on the road and need spiritual guidance and a friendly shoulder.

The Baltimore County school board voted Tuesday evening to build an elementary school in Mays Chapel despite angry opposition from neighbors. The 700-seat school is estimated to cost $20 million to $24 million and is expected to open within two to three years to relieve overcrowding in the York Road corridor. School system administrators believe that they will need about 1,000 new seats for elementary school students within the next several years. The board vote came after a contentious debate 24 hours earlier at a hearing where neighbors accused the school system of rushing to make a decision without considering other sites or other solutions for the overcrowding that has plagued the area for the past five years.

For the second time in four years, there's a fight brewing in northern Baltimore County that raises questions about the scarcity of county-owned land for parks and schools. The school system is poised to approve building an elementary school on land it has owned for decades in Mays Chapel, currently the site of a park. But residents in the community, largely made up of retirees, say they don't want to give up the green, open space near their residences. With trailers lined up outside elementary schools in the area and enrollment projected to continue growing in the next five years, the system needs to build a school that can accommodate 700 students.

Who says a proposed elementary school would ruin Mays Chapel if it is built there? Adding a school would be an educational and recreational blessing for the neighborhood. The current concrete jungle of condos, apartments, shopping center, medical building and swimming pool already holds the award for "ruining" what was once a bucolic woodland. The planned unit development on the west side of I-83 was a painful sacrifice that introduced commercial entities where they never belonged.

Taxpayers deserve answers to a number of questions regarding the proposed Mays Chapel school project. For example, why the air of secrecy surrounding the project? According to Third District Councilman Todd Huff, he was "caught by complete and total surprise" by news of the Mays Chapel project status. How will the county respond to the economic uncertainties presented by rising fuel prices, since nearly all students would require busing from other communities? As Superintendent Joe Hairston and County Executive Kevin Kamenetz push forward on a controversial school project, intended to serve approximately 700 students, the irony of the situation - building a commuter school by design during a time of volatile, rising fuel costs with no end in sight - should sound an alarm.

I disagree with those who support building a school in Mays Chapel North, where a wonderful walking path and athletic fields are currently located. As a long-time resident of Mays Chapel and a senior citizen, I have enjoyed the benefit of having a tranquil and safe area to walk. Not only is the park convenient to the many senior citizens living in Mays Chapel, but it is used by others in the surrounding residential communities. As a physical therapist with over five decades of experience, I have seen the detrimental effects of a lack of exercise.

In response to letter writer Susan Brown, I would like to offer her an invitation to visit Mays Chapel Park so she can get an idea what is involved ("Mays Chapel school would be an asset to the area," March 11). First, she will not see many school children in the area during the day, nor many school buses since it is an adult community around the park, and most people are retired. Second, she will see a 20-acre park that is busy this week because there are lacrosse games going on for school children from all over the area.

Ralph Ellison, the writer, died at 80 last weekend.I remember Ralph Ellison, the teacher. He taught an American literature course at Bard College, in Annandale-on-the-Hudson, New York, in 1958.That year, several times a week, he strolled the path from the nearby town of Tivoli to the campus where he held his class. The class met in the chapel of a country church at the edge of the school grounds. Ralph Ellison would magically appear from out of the woods that formed a barrier on the hillside and separated the old church from the banks of the Hudson River down below.

The battle lines are drawn between the feisty, mostly elderly residents of Lemko House in Fells Point and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has ordered their popular chapel dismantled.The residents of the federally financed apartment building say God is on their side. But they are not relying solely on the deity.In their church-state fight with the government, they have won the support of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, the Maryland Democrat who lives across the street from Lemko's front door.

Regarding Hunt Valley resident Susan Brown's letter advocating building a school on property that has been referred to as Mays Chapel Park these past 20-plus years ("Mays Chapel school wouldn't detract from the area's natural beauty," March 11), her opinion is short sighted and doesn't recognize the value of the only piece of open land available for use by countless hundreds of property owners exercising and walking their dogs - and just enjoying the quiet of Mays Chapel Park. Many hundreds of children and their coaches and trainers use the park for football, soccer and lacrosse - as at least a hundred or more were doing when I was there on Saturday.

When the Mays Chapel planned unit development was approved by Baltimore County, part of the agreement was that there was to be a school built as part of the project. Since it is sorely needed now, the county should build a school that serves the area. It has been many years since this agreement, but the county hasn't fulfilled its promise. There are many children who are living in the area considered Mays Chapel. While it is true that one of the closest residential areas is a retirement community, that should not affect where a school is located.