Clarksville

Dan Geraghty first picked up an electric guitar when he was 10 and now, at 17, he nearly always has his hands on one. Though just last spring he was a junior at River Hill High School, right now he and the other four band members of Hollywood Ending are contestants in "Next Big Thing," a Radio Disney talent competition that began its fourth season this month. "I've wanted to play music forever," said the Clarksville resident last week from aboard a tour bus traveling from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

As the urban world of Columbia closes around them, Clarksville residents who live along Trotter Road have seen just about everything in their quiet, uncomplicated world change.So it's no wonder that a new post office for River Hill -- Columbia's 10th and final village -- would create an identity crisis of sorts for some residents."A lot of people have asked, 'Are we going to remain with a Clarksville address? We aren't going to get changed to Columbia, are we?' " said Shirley Geis, who has lived on Trotter Road since 1956.

Clarksville property owners along Route 108 between Route 32 and Sheppard Lane learned Monday that their land will be included in a Jan. 9 comprehensive rezoning proposal.County planning director JosephW. Rutter Jr. said County Council members C. Vernon Gray, D-3rd, andPaul R. Farragut, D-4th, asked him to include the half-mile Clarksville corridor in the administration's comprehensive rezoning proposal for the western portion of the county.Council members, who also sit as the zoning board, believe a comprehensive approach is preferable to the many piecemeal petitions theyare receiving for zoning changes in the area, Rutter said.

FORGET ABOUT the gridlocked national electorate and the mandate-free presidency. Don't worry about Mike Mussina or the Middle East. Think about a real problem: Think about those forces now splitting the Clarksville Fire Department from its Ladies Auxiliary after 53 years. Is it legal to have a volunteer fire company without an auxiliary? Seems anti-American, seditious -- dumb, actually. The Ladies Auxiliary is as American as apple pie. It's as American as motherhood. Come to think of it, it is motherhood.

A world-class ice dancer from Clarksville has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in connection with allegations that he sexually abused a 16-year-old girl in Lake Placid, N.Y. Genrikh Sretenski, 50, a Russian-born former Olympic competitor, pleaded guilty in January to third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child, according to his defense attorney Terence L. Kindlon. Under terms of the plea deal in courts in Essex County and Lake Placid Village, N.Y., he was fined, given a one-year conditional release and ordered to stay away from the teenager, according to an email from Essex County, N.Y., prosecutors.

POLICE LOG* Woodbine: 16500 block of Old Frederick Road: Someone damaged a mailbox between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Thursday.

If Kitty Boyan's students grow up to be polluters and litterers it won't be for lack of a good role model.Boyan, a teacher at Clarksville Elementary School, developed the school's outdoor environmental studies area, where students learn about the workings of nature in anopen-air classroom.But even inside, Boyan doesn't let her students forget about the great outdoors.Environment posters line the walls. Boyan has evenmanaged to teach her students that a tarantula can be beautiful. Oneof the hairy creatures sits in a cage on a window ledge in the room.

POLICE LOG* Clarksville: 12700 block of Hall Shop Road: Electronic equipment was stolen just before noon Thursday after an intruder entered an unlocked rear door while the resident was at a funeral.