Chester River

When you reach the yellow flashing traffic lights at the intersection of Route 20 and Rock Hall's Main Street, you have the choice of three directions to take. But, regardless of choice, the roads will lead to soothing water views.It is this end-of-the-road kind of solitude that is increasingly attracting larger numbers of both "weekenders" and permanent residents to Rock Hall, at the southernmost tip of Kent County -- Maryland's smallest county."If you have an income, it's a good place to drop out of the rat race," said Terry Smith, a local businessman, retired Army officer and 14-year resident of Rock Hall.

James T. Anthony III, 85, Queen Anne's floristJames Turner Anthony III, who had owned a Queen Anne's County nursery and florist, died Friday of an aneurysm at Kent & Queen Anne's Hospital. The lifelong Chestertown resident was 85.In the early 1950s, he founded Anthony's Flowers in Kingstown and sold it in the early 1980s. He was a real estate agent from 1983 to 1993.The 1930 graduate of Chestertown High School was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Heroism in 1931 after he rescued a boy from the Chester River.

CENTREVILLE -- In the past two years, Eastern Shore farmer Temple Rhodes has spent about $110,000 of his own money and nearly $500,000 of taxpayers' cash to stop his farm's fertilizer and cow manure from polluting the Chesapeake Bay.It probably won't be enough. Despite all that money and effort, no one knows whether the Rhodes family's 3,000 acres near Centreville are contributing nitrogen- and phosphorus-laden runoff to the Chester River. And if they are, farm experts say, no one can tell Rhodes how to stop it.The Rhodes family's dilemma typifies what Eastern Shore farmers will face if the General Assembly enacts Gov. Parris N. Glendening's plan to help prevent Pfiesteria.

KENT ISLAND -- Rob Papa wasn't about to let a funny-named, toxic microorganism keep him from making a holiday buck. As he'd done all summer, Papa waded into knee-deep waters yesterday to lease personal watercraft near Kent Island -- on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay.Papa doesn't fear a Pfiesteria piscicida-linked illness that has struck 13 people about 70 miles to the south. He even joked about one of its symptoms, memory loss. "Some things are better to forget," said Papa, who reports slow sales of late.

CHESAPEAKE CITY -- When it's not the pain, it's the uncertainty that most troubles John Viars. One month after crabbing on the Chester River, he's still ailing from something that got into his system that day. He tires easily, his muscles ache, his left hand swells suddenly, and his skin breaks into splotches and lesions.Meanwhile, he wonders if doctors -- he has seen 10 so far -- will ever figure out what's wrong.Having watched her husband's bizarre symptoms come and go for 35 days, his wife, Eileen Viars, said last week: "Sometimes I feel like I'm watching a science fiction movie here."

Tea partyCelebrate Colonial resistance to British rule this weekend in Chestertown with the 24th Annual Tea Party Festival. The highlight of the two-day event -- the re-enactment of the dumping of British tea on May 23, 1774, into the Chester River -- is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday.Festivities begin with the 21st annual 10-mile distance run at 8 a.m. Saturday. A Colonial Parade through the town, featuring the Kiltie Band of York, the Washington Memorial Pipe Band and horse-drawn carriages, starts at 10 a.m. Live entertainment is scheduled throughout the day. Also part of the festival are more than 140 craft experts -- from blacksmiths and candle makers to weavers and woodworkers.

The state has blocked a Kent County farmer's plan to raise 3,000 hogs in a warehouse by the headwaters of the Chester River, averting for now a controversy over the environmental impact of so-called "factory" farming.The Maryland Department of the Environment has rejected an application by Anthony Guessregen for a ground-water discharge permit to apply liquefied hog waste on the 313-acre Willow Pond Farm near Millington. He had planned to excavate two lagoons to store up to 15 million gallons of diluted hog waste.

As state health officials deal with what they suspect is a reappearance of a toxic microorganism that has killed and disfigured thousands of fish in the Pocomoke River, anglers miles to the north are reporting fish with strikingly similar sores.On the Chester River on Sunday, a man caught 15 rockfish bearing gaping sores.In a phone call this week to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, he also mentioned recent medical problems that match some of those experienced by Shelltown-area watermen who became sick after contact with the Pocomoke River.

MILLINGTON -- Anthony Guessregen sees himself as just another farmer trying to eke out a living from his land. But others in this rural Kent County community, including some farmers, say the 35-year-old former fisherman from Long Island, N.Y., gives agriculture a bad name.Guessregen and his wife, Patricia, plan to raise 3,000 hogs on their 313-acre farm nearby. Rather than wallow in the mud, though, these porkers will spend four months bulking up in stalls inside a "finishing house" before being trucked to slaughter.

When people ask me what my favorite restaurant is, certainly one of the ones I always mention is Mark Henry's Chester River Inn on Kent Island. Not any longer. The main dining room closed last Saturday; the bar downstairs will serve its last meal Feb. 28.Henry was one of Baltimore's most celebrated chefs while he ran the Milton Inn's kitchen for almost seven years. He left to open his own place on the Eastern Shore in July 1994. Perhaps because of the location, perhaps because of the no-frills decor, the Chester River Inn never became the financial success it should have, given the magnificent food.

As the yellow perch begin their spawning runs up Chesapeake Bay tributaries, the state is set to implement regulations to protect the species from overfishing while giving recreational anglers a greater share of the annual allocation. The rules, developed over the past year after pressure from the General Assembly, will take effect Monday. "I think we made a lot of progress," said Tom O'Connell, head of the Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Service. "We learned that we have to be more conservative in management to allow the population to sustain itself and grow in time."

H. Norman Grieb II, a retired Chestertown Realtor, died Wednesday of complications from Parkinson's disease at Chester River Medical Center. He was 89. Mr. Grieb was born in Eagles Mere, Pa., and raised in St. Davids, Pa. He was a 1936 graduate of William Penn Charter School and attended the University of Virginia. He served in the Coast Guard and Army before being honorably discharged in 1943. Mr. Grieb worked in sales for the Baldwin Electrical Co. and then established Farm Service Co., an electrical and plumbing contracting firm.

Patricia Herold Nielsen, an environmental activist and founding member of the Eastern Shore's Chester River Association, died of breast cancer Feb. 28 at her Brooklyn, N.Y., home. She was 59. Born and raised Patricia Herold in Westfield, N.J., she earned a degree in English literature from Emmanuel College in Boston in 1970. She began her broadcasting career at WBUR-FM in Boston as an associate producer, and later joined WCVB-TV, also in Boston, as a member of its award-winning documentary unit.

David Oakley Vanderpoel Barroll, a retired former owner of an Eastern Shore real estate firm, died Tuesday in his sleep at Chester River Manor, a Chestertown assisted-living facility. He was 75. The native and lifelong resident of Chestertown was a 1950 graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Del. He attended Washington College and was a private in the Army from 1953 to 1955. He sold automobiles and farm equipment before becoming a real estate salesman in the late 1960s. In 1972, he established Cooper-Barroll Realty in Chestertown, of which he later became president.

Laura H. Boyer, a homemaker and longtime Chestertown resident, died Saturday of heart failure at Chester River Hospital Center. She was 77. Laura Hogans was born and raised in Rock Hall and graduated in 1946 from Rock Hall High School. She attended Washington College. In 1952, she married Elroy G. Boyer Sr., now a retired Kent County Circuit Court judge. The couple lived for many years in Rock Hall before moving to Chestertown in 1980. During the 1970s and 1980s, Mrs. Boyer worked in real estate sales for Cooper-Barroll Realty in Chestertown.

Harford County : Edgewood Police identify crash victim A Baltimore City police recruit killed in a Harford County motorcycle crash during the weekend has been identified as Ruben Renta, a Harford County sheriff's spokeswoman said. Renta, 33, was riding a 2002 Honda Sport when it crashed about 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the 2300 block of Hanson Road in Edgewood. He was pronounced dead at the scene, Sgt. Christina Presberry said in a statement. Renta was scheduled to graduate from the police academy in 2008.

HORSES AND HORSEPOWER See the beautiful and famed Budweiser Clydesdale horses and celebrate Chestertown's 300th anniversary Saturday at the Horses to Hummers parade. The parade covers the history of land travel, with nearly 100 horses, including Clydesdales weighing up to 2,200 pounds, as well as horse-drawn carriages, antique cars, 1940s to 1960s classics and modern transportation like the Hummer. Marching bands, musical groups, food vendors, horse-related merchants and the world-touring Synergy Brass Quintet will join in the fun. Pony rides, horse jumping, horseshoe and precision-riding demonstrations in Wilmer Park will follow the parade.

Joseph Wilbur Strong Sr., a retired Kent County businessman and World War II pilot, died from stroke complications Saturday at a hospital in Christiana, Del. He was 83. The lifelong Chestertown resident was a 1938 graduate of Chestertown High School. During World War II, he enlisted in the Navy and attained the rank of lieutenant. Assigned to Cape May, N.J., he flew patrol missions over the Atlantic. After the war, he returned to Chestertown, where he owned and operated C. W. Kibler & Sons, selling such products as coal, fertilizer, lime and seeds from 1951 until 1974 when he sold the business.

Four years ago, in what was hailed then as the largest land preservation deal in Maryland history, officials paid $8 million to the owner of Chino Farms in Queen Anne's County to ensure that its 5,000 acres along the Chester River would remain home to bald eagles, endangered squirrels and thousands of ducks and geese. Now, 114 suburban homes are planned on a neighboring farm, and more may be on the way for Chino's other borders. The situation, playing out now before the county's planning commission, highlights the growing challenges of preserving farming in Maryland as suburbia spreads across the state.

On Monday, November 1, 2004, WILLIAM H. "Huggy Bear" NORRIS, JR., of Chestertown, MD, died in the Chester River Hospital Center, Chestertown, MD. He was 78. Mr. Norris was born in Baltimore, MD, the son of the late William H. Norris, Sr. and George Slingluff Norris. Mr. Norris was a self employed Real Estate Broker, Owning the William Norris Real Estate Agency for many years. Mr. Norris was a WWII Marine Corps Veteran. Mr. Norris was a member and Past Commodore of the Chester River yacht and Country Club, Chestertown, MD, where he enjoyed playing golf, with his many friends and participating in the MISGA, golf outings throughout the eastern shore.