Eastern Shore

An Eastern Shore luxury inn has been honored for the second year in a row as one of the world's top travel experiences.Readers of Conde Nast Traveler have dubbed the Inn at Perry Cabin, in St. Michaels, among the top 50 travel locations in the world. The inn was ranked the 35th best overall travel experience by the magazine's readers."We're just ecstatic to be in the top 50 again, with all the competition out there," said Stephen Creese, the hotel's general manager. "We're running with the big guys, which is very difficult.

A teenager being sought in the killing of an Eastern Shore man this week was caught yesterday at a house in Princess Anne, according to the Maryland State Police. Brandon M. Curtis, 18, was arrested shortly after 4 p.m., said spokesman Gregory M. Shipley. Curtis was charged with killing Booker Gelzer, 38, a friend of Curtis' mother. He was found fatally shot Wednesday morning in the woman's home in Hebron, a small town near Salisbury. Police said Curtis was seen fleeing the house in a maroon Chevrolet Blazer, which authorities found in Salisbury that night.

A Pittsburgh couple on their way home from a weekend antique car convention in Ocean City were killed early yesterday when their car was struck by a tractor-trailer on an Eastern Shore highway, state police said. John W. Heisler, 71, was driving a white 1996 Buick station wagon with wood-grain side panels north on U.S. 301 near Sudlersville in Queen Anne's County about 3:55 a.m. when the accident occurred. Police said he abruptly moved from the slow lane across the fast lane to make a left turn at Route 300 and pick up southbound 301. But after Heisler entered the fast lane, his Buick was struck in the driver's side by a northbound 2000 Peterbilt tractor-trailer whose driver was unable to avoid the collision, police said.

Maryland's Upper Eastern Shore grew rapidly during the 1980s, mainly because of highway improvements and fewer red lights. A motorist now can travel from the Baltimore beltway to Easton in 90 minutes. The region seems well on its way to becoming a not-too-distant suburb of the Baltimore-Annapolis-Washington triangle.Will this trend surmount the recession, or will it stagnate until money and jobs are more secure? Heavy traffic moves down I-97 through Anne Arundel County and across the bay bridge along Route 50 to the middle and northern shore communities.

EASTON -- Casino opponents turned out here yesterday to urge Maryland lawmakers to reject Las Vegas-style gaming halls in the state's first public hearing on the issue.A largely anti-casino crowd of about 200 packed an auditorium, with many warning that casinos would severely damage life on the Eastern Shore, particularly in Ocean City.Ocean City Mayor Roland E. "Fish" Powell recalled that when the resort town had illegal gambling in the 1940s, only a handful of families profited while others lost their livelihoods.

EASTON -- If the Eastern Shore's Colonial capital was hostile territory for Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, you wouldn't have known it yesterday, as the all-but-announced gubernatorial candidate picked up endorsements from a dozen Democrats who have dominated recent elections in conservative Talbot County. Townsend, who received 37 percent of the vote here four years ago as Gov. Parris N. Glendening's running mate, stirred 150 supporters who crowded the lawn of the 200-year-old brick courthouse with a speech that promised an activist government aimed at helping every person achieve what she called their "indispensable destiny."

Vice President Dan Quayle flew to the Eastern Shore today to give Republican Wayne T. Gilchrest a last-minute boost while Rep. Roy P. Dyson, D-1st, met with watermen and senior citizens."

Dozens of police officers combed Eastern Shore communities and rural areas yesterday in search of 18-year-old Brandon Curtis, who they believe went to his mother's house and killed a man who may have been her former lover. As the manhunt continued through the day, police obtained a warrant charging Curtis with murder. Neighbors had seen him speeding away yesterday morning from his mother's home in rural Hebron in a burgundy Chevrolet Trailblazer, Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley said.

The snow that missed Baltimore fell instead on the lower Eastern Shore, where 6 to 9 inches transformed the sands at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge into a white dream worthy of Audubon."

Talbot County's only incumbent delegate was unseated yesterday in a Democratic primary -- giving Caroline County hope of having a resident delegate for the first time in eight years.With four other lawmakers vacating their seats, much change was assured in the Eastern Shore's delegation to Annapolis.In the Mid-Shore's 37th District, Delegate Philip Carey Foster, D-Talbot, appointed to the House last year, virtually split the home-county vote with challenger Herbert L. Andrew III, a Talbot council member.