Competition

Everyday scenes of Havre de Grace will be the subject of the plein air paintings created by artists selected to compete in the second annual Havre de Grace Plein Air Painting Competition from Wednesday through Saturday. The competition is sponsored by Soroptimist International of Havre de Grace. En plein air is a French expression meaning "in the open air," used to describe painting in an outside environment rather than in a studio. Artists were selected to compete by juror Jacqueline Baldini of Niagara Falls, Ontario, director and founder of the International Plein Air Painting Organization.

Baltimore area cake decorator Tracey Buchanan - who labored over fondant icing and Styrofoam for more than a dozen hours as part of the Mid-Atlantic Cake Show and Wedding Cake Competition on Saturday - was awarded second place in the decorative cookie category yesterday. Buchanan entered a foam core wedding cake in the shape of the purse her mother carried on her 1980 wedding day, as well as a St. Patrick's Day cake, the cookie decorated as a jewelry cameo, a three-tiered pale green and ivory cake, and a gingerbread cabin with creeping vines.

A Broadneck High School senior's radiation experiment has earned her $1,000 for college and $1,000 for her high school science department, and a place among the best science students in the country. Danna Thomas, 17, was named one of 300 national semifinalists last week in the Intel Science Talent Search, often referred to as the junior Nobel Prize because six former finalists have gone on to win that honor. She is the only semifinalist from the county this year and one of only 22 from Maryland.

Emma Call, a senior at Polytechnic Institute, has been named one of 40 finalists in the nation in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition. Two other finalists are from Maryland, both from Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County: Brian Robert Lawrence of Kensington and Richard Matthew McCutchen of Rockville. The finalists will travel in March to Washington, where their research will be judged and displayed at the National Academy of Sciences and they will meet with national leaders.

They weren't the cheers you'd expect to hear at M&T Bank Stadium on a November weekend. "Color guard rules!" pompom-waving fans screamed from the stands. "Fly like an eagle!" Marching band supporters tend to avoid trash talk or name-calling to focus on the positive, a reputation borne out this weekend at the U.S. Scholastic Band Association National Championship. After months of after-school and weekend practices, football halftime show performances and local competitions, more than 70 high school marching bands from across the nation closed out their season in a marathon of performances Friday and yesterday.

With only the whirring of the heating vents, the crackling of their own joints and the occasional ringing cell phone to break the silence, the men and women moved deliberately and carefully through the series of yoga poses. They balanced on one leg while bringing their head to the knee of their outstretched leg. They kicked a leg up behind them, far above their heads while leaning forward with an outstretched arm. And they twisted, stretched and bent themselves into positions that seemed unimaginable.

Gov. Martin O'Malley promised during his campaign to fire the Public Service Commission for approving huge electricity rate increases. Ironically, this will occur 100 years after such state commissions were established to take politics out of ratemaking. Although the PSC was a useful political issue for Mr. O'Malley, a politicized commission serves no good purpose. Therefore, assuming he follows through on his threat, the new governor would be wise to select widely respected, politically neutral experts.

Dressed in the floor-length, gold-sequined gown that she wore to her son's wedding, Merle Stanley trilled a bluesy "Misty" before a crowd of about 500 yesterday at the Maryland Senior Idol 2007 competition. The song that begins and ends with the lyrics "Look at me" captured the attention of the crowd and the three judges. Before she lingered over the final "me," the audience had exploded into applause. "You are the real deal," judge Russ Margo said at the end of Stanley's first stage performance.

The buzz of hair clippers filled the air as Beth Majchrzak moved from one client to the next. "We're what you'd call an animal hairdresser," she said with a laugh, trimming the woolly coat of a Hampshire sheep named Nickelback. Yesterday, on the eve of the first day of competition at the Maryland State Fair, the Timonium fairgrounds was busier than a barbershop in prom season. Farmers, animal owners and their barn help began washing, trimming, braiding and coiffuring the hair of horses, sheep, cows, swine and other beasts that will be judged in various competitions over the 11 days of the annual state fair.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. yesterday defended a proposed electricity-deregulation settlement that it endorses during the first day of Maryland Public Service Commission hearings on the proposal.Most of yesterday's session was spent with BGE representatives answering questions by an attorney for the Mid-Atlantic Power Supply Association, a New Jersey-based coalition of power companies that wants to sell electricity in Maryland.The hearings will continue today, and the PSC will convene them again tomorrow if necessary.

A team of Howard County students scored first place in one category of the 2009 International Botball Tournament, an educational robotics competition. Three teenagers who attend Cedar Brook Academy, a private school in Clarksburg in Montgomery County, worked for about four months to develop a mobile, autonomous robot, winning the judge's choice award at the regional level and topping the Alliance Match category at the international level in July. "My favorite part for the past couple years has been winning," said Ethan Myers, 16, the team captain, who's been competing annually since sixth grade.

Shaquille O'Neal vs. Phelps in Baltimore A new ABC sports reality series starring NBA center Shaquille O'Neal will be filming a segment Sunday at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Called "Shaq Vs.," the show pits O'Neal against other top athletes. Sunday's taping will find the wide-bodied O'Neal competing against Baltimore's Olympic champ Michael Phelps in the pool. Members of Meadowbrook, where the pool is housed, were told in an e-mail this week that they would be able to watch the competition - with only the area where the ABC crew is filming closed off. No date has yet been set for the swimming segment with Phelps.

Reward offered in Howard County escape Authorities are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Devin Champagne, a convicted felon who escaped custody Thursday night as he was being transported from Howard County Circuit Court to the county detention center. Champagne, 20, is accused of the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer for allegedly using his handcuffs to choke a sheriff's deputy during the escape. He had been convicted Thursday of felony theft.

Lifeguards, it turns out, really can swim. For the record, they can also run, scramble in the sand under a plastic net, toss a life ring with some accuracy and sprint while dragging a canoe. While their work at the state's parks mostly involves sitting on watch in a tall chair, that particular activity was not included in the Maryland Park Service Lifeguard Competition at Gunpowder Falls State Park on Wednesday. Sixty-eight lifeguards gathered at the Hammerman Beach area to show their athleticism if not their key job skills, which tend to involve surveillance and the ability to remain focused for stretches of time during which very little of note is happening.

Terri Kieffer playfully taunted Alvin, her beloved 9-month-old yellow Lab, to jump into the pool ahead. "You want to get it?" the Emmitsburg resident shouted at her dog as she held up a blue chew toy. "Now get it!" she yelled as she flicked it into the pool. Alvin ran down the 40-foot dock and leaped a good 14 feet into the pool, making a gigantic splash. Several hundred onlookers clapped enthusiastically Sunday during the Dockdogs competition at the Harford County Farm Fair in Bel Air. Close to 200 dogs competed from Thursday to Sunday at Dockdogs, which is a track and field-like event for dogs.

A team of four Cradlerock School students won second place at the 2009 MESA USA National Engineering Contest in Denver last month. The middle-schoolers - Alexis Ligon, Caroline Pyon, Xinxin Guo and Ben Kale - placed for design efficiency and accuracy in the Trebuchet, a catapult competition. The students represented not only Howard County, but the entire state of Maryland during the competition. At the national competition, the team competed against both middle and high school students from across the nation.

Ronan, an 18-month-old Belgian Malinois, bolted from his owner's grasp and charged across the open field toward a guy waving a stick and screaming, "Get that dog out of here." The dog lunged toward the man, bit into his arm and held on. "Good grip," said a man with a clipboard. As a judge for the Protection Sports Association, he made note of it as part of the dog's ability to take commands from his owner, ignore all distractions and hang on to a "decoy," a person outfitted in a thickly padded bite suit.

Organizers say there will be no shortage of local talent when the Gatorade Free Flow Tour holds a skateboarding competition Saturday at noon at Baltimore's Charm City Skatepark. The tour, an amateur skateboarding and BMX series that travels throughout the country during the summer, will be returning to Baltimore for the second consecutive year. Charm City Skatepark owner Jason Chapman said he expected the event to attract anywhere from 60 to 100 competitors in two age groups: 12-and-under and 13-18.

Jack Nolan spent months trying to improve upon his finish at last year's Howard County spelling bee, when he was knocked out in the fourth round. The fifth-grader at Deep Run Elementary School in Elkridge studied 15 words a week that his mother, Valerie, found by scouring the Internet. He defined all of the words, wrote them backward and memorized them. The preparation paid off this year when the 10-year-old correctly spelled "fortuitous" in the 15th round to capture the county title.

COLLEGE PARK -The River Hill Hawks advanced all 12 of their qualifiers into the second day of competition at the state wrestling tournament last night, giving their coach, Brandon Lauer, a growing sense of possibility. "Every one of our kids have already scored points for us," said Lauer, whose goal is to obtain River Hill's first Class 2A-1A wrestling title. "We've got three in the semifinals. It will be a tall order to push them all into the finals, but that's where a lot of points can be scored.