Dorchester County

Frederick -- A Frederick man who died shortly after he was shocked by a police Taser had drunk a lot of alcohol but apparently had taken no drugs, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said yesterday. Jarrel C. Gray, 20, died Nov. 18 after Cpl. Rudy Torres, a 13-year-veteran of the sheriff's office, used the electronic stun gun on him twice in 23 seconds after responding to reports of men fighting outdoors in a Frederick neighborhood about 5 a.m. Torres delivered the first, five-second burst after Gray ignored an order to show his hands, Cpl. Jennifer Bailey said.

State and federal authorities completed a four-year undercover investigation of a Dorchester County hunt club over the weekend, arresting or issuing citations to almost two dozen guides, fishermen and hunters charged with about 400 violations of game and fishing laws.Maryland Natural Resources Police say they began documenting illegal hunting and fishing at the 2,000-acre Golden Hills Farm in February 1995, booking hunting trips through the farm's guide service. They continued their investigation when the farm became a shooting club and began charging members annual dues in 1996.

CAMBRIDGE -- On a recent weekday, innkeeper Stuart Schefers spent the morning turning away callers from his fully booked Queen Anne-style bed-and-breakfast."

An Annapolis man was ordered jailed without bail in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center yesterday on charges that he tried to kill his wife, the deputy state's attorney in Dorchester County.District Judge Nancy Davis-Loomis also ordered an emergency mental competency evaluation of Douglas D. Lund, 36, of the first block of Colonial Ave., at the request of prosecutors and defense lawyers.An emergency evaluation must be conducted within 72 hours.Lund was at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital from the time of the Sept.

An Annapolis man was ordered jailed without bail in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center yesterday on charges that he tried to kill his wife, the deputy state's attorney in Dorchester County.District Judge Nancy Davis-Loomis also ordered an emergency mental competency evaluation of Douglas D. Lund, 36, of the first block of Colonial Ave. at the request of prosecutors and defense lawyers. The evaluation must be conducted within 72 hours.Lund was at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital from the time of the Sept.

Leah L. Staley, 82, helped seniors prepare taxesLeah L. Staley, a former partner in Staley Supply Co. and founder of a tax-assistance preparation program for senior citizens, died Saturday of emphysema at her Cambridge home. She was 82.Mrs. Staley, who formerly lived on a farm in Baldwin, moved to Cambridge in 1960, and with her husband founded Staley Supply Co. The couple sold the business in 1982.She established the tax preparation program for the elderly in 1980 that is based in the Dorchester County Public Library.

Elementary schools named Maryland Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence are being honored by the Baltimore Orioles' minor league affiliates, which have offered two tickets to a designated game for each of their pupils and staff members.About 12,000 free tickets have been distributed by the Bowie Baysox, Frederick Keys and Delmarva Shorebirds. Seven of the schools will be honored at Prince George's Stadium in Bowie before tomorrow evening's game between the Baysox and the Trenton Thunder.The schools, which were named in November, are Oak Hill and West Annapolis in Anne Arundel County; Timonium in Baltimore County; Vienna in Dorchester County; Ashburton and Brooke Grove in Montgomery County; Kenilworth and Templeton in Prince George's County; Banneker/Loveville in St. Mary's County; and Salem Avenue in Washington County.

Charles E. Edmondson, a retired judge in Dorchester County, died Saturday of cancer at his Cambridge residence. He was 84.Judge Edmondson was appointed to the Dorchester County District Court by Gov. Marvin Mandel in 1971 and served as administrative judge of the District Court for the 2nd District, which includes Wicomico, Somerset and Worcester counties.In 1975, he was appointed to the Circuit Court for Dorchester County and served until 1984, when he reached the mandatory retirement age. He was recalled by the Court of Appeals and continued to sit in District and Circuit courts past 80."

PROSPERITY has eluded Cambridge, a historic town of 10,800 on the Lower Eastern Shore. While nearby communities -- St. Michael's, Oxford and Easton -- draw tourists and wealthy retirees, Cambridge, the focal point of agricultural Dorchester County, limps along.Unemployment in Dorchester County, at 7.8 percent, is third-highest in the state, exceeding Baltimore's 7.4 percent jobless rate.That could change, thanks to a deal sealed this week between the state and Hyatt Hotels to turn 342 acres on the shores of the Choptank River into a luxury resort.

A Dorchester County sewer plant operator has been fined $5,000 and lost his license to operate a treatment plant for failing to perform required wastewater tests and falsifying state environmental records from the plant.Thomas W. Trego of Secretary pleaded guilty in Dorchester County District Court on Monday to filing a false statement about tests performed at the Twin Cities Wastewater Treatment plant in Secretary in June 1998. Judge John C. Coolahan suspended $4,000 of the fine, made the remainder payable to the Maryland Clean Water Fund and ordered Trego to perform 40 hours of community service.

The controversy surrounding the state Board of Public Works' recent acquisition of 1,000 acres of undeveloped land in Dorchester County underscores a dilemma for conservationists. In good economic times, most people recognize the value of preserving working lands, natural habitats and open space for future generations. Tougher times, some argue, call for harder choices. Among many pressing priorities, land conservation may begin to sound like a luxury we can delay until the economy rebounds.

State officials agreed Wednesday to buy more than 1,000 acres of pine forest and tidal marsh in Dorchester County, bringing to more than 25,000 acres the total amount of land acquired for preservation under the O'Malley administration. The Board of Public Works - made up of Gov. Martin O'Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy Kopp - approved paying $3.1 million for five privately owned tracts west of the Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area. The parcels, owned by the Dorchester timber firm Besley and Rodgers Inc., are to become part of the state's Chesapeake Forest Lands, allowing continued timbering while also providing public access and preserving wildlife habitat for ducks, eagles and federally endangered Delmarva fox squirrels.

Dorchester County gets funds for water projects Dorchester County will receive a $3 million injection of federal stimulus funding to help build water and sewer lines and a stormwater management facility at a technology park in Cambridge, federal officials said Friday. The federal Economic Development Administration grant is expected to help create jobs and encourage private investment in the area, officials said. The project was made possible due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Fire that displaced 30 people in Essex caused by candle A two-alarm fire late Wednesday in the Hartland Village neighborhood of Essex that extensively damaged at least seven apartment-style town houses and displaced 30 residents was caused by a burning candle, according to a Baltimore County fire spokeswoman. No injuries were reported, but several of the 16 affected homes were deemed uninhabitable because of loss of power. A resident in a second-story bedroom lit a candle, which fell from a nightstand and ignited combustible materials, according to county fire spokeswoman Elise Armacost.

A $1.2 billion, 150-mile power line that would cross Maryland and lay high-voltage cables under the Chesapeake Bay for the first time has been proposed to ease the threat of blackouts on the growing Delmarva Peninsula. But the proposal is generating opposition from environmentalists, landowners and even business interests in mostly rural Dorchester County, who worry that the project could disrupt farming, damage sensitive marshlands and blight the area's growing tourism. The Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway from Northern Virginia to Delaware has been proposed by Pepco Holdings Inc., the Washington-based parent company of Pepco and Delmarva Power, to upgrade the region's increasingly taxed electricity grid, which officials have warned could lead to outages or brownouts in as little as five years.

Maryland's blue crab season opened officially this month with some skittering apprehensions. Not only are Chesapeake Bay hard crabs expected to be in short supply but consumer demand for such a premium product may prove soft given the country's economic realities. But those concerns will be a trifle for the local seafood industry if Congress fails to extend the guest worker program for another season. Most of the state's 22 crab processing plants depend on roughly 600 foreign workers to pick crabs.

Teen charged, 2nd sought in Annapolis shooting Police have arrested one teenager and are seeking another in an Annapolis shooting that was apparently in retaliation for a double homicide Nov. 16 in Odenton, police said. Dametres Maurekoe Short, 18, of Newtowne Drive in Annapolis was charged yesterday with attempted murder in connection with a shooting hours after four men were shot, two fatally, in a parking lot near Fort Meade. A warrant charging Rishard Richard Naylor, 17, with first-degree murder as an adult has also been issued.

A legislative oversight committee approved tough new regulations yesterday aimed at restoring the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population by significantly cutting the harvest of female crabs. The rules - approved over the protests of watermen and Eastern Shore lawmakers - mean the season for females will end Oct. 23, about two months early. The rules also impose limits on how many bushels of females watermen can catch. State officials said they had no choice but to impose stiff measures because the crab population has fallen precipitously.

A Delaware company wants to mine sand and gravel on a parcel of farmland and forest along Marshyhope Creek on Maryland's Eastern Shore - a proposal that is raising alarm among conservationists who fear the operation will destroy rare wetlands, harm endangered species and ruin bird habitat. The Horsey Family LLC is asking Dorchester County this week for a zoning exception so it can excavate soil, sand and gravel from the property and create an "open-water lake." Workers would then float a hydraulic dredge into the lake and extract the remaining mineral resources, according to an application filed with the county last month.

If history made a sound, it would be a musical one. It's easy to imagine the crash of cymbals and rumble from a pedestal timpani drum as musical elements of wars. There is also perhaps no better shoo-in for the disco era of the 1970s than the "chica-wah-wah" of a strummed electric guitar. But how might you connect music to America's history of bondage, brutality and beastly treatment of African slaves? What if you could take a person from that era and paint them with music that is symbolic of their legacy?