Eldersburg

A woman was killed after two cars collided Sunday morning in Eldersburg, Maryland State Police said. A Chrysler making a left turn from Liberty Road onto Georgetown Boulevard collided with a Nissan shortly before noon, police said. Myrtle Coghill, a passenger in the Chrysler, was taken to the Carroll Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead. The driver of that vehicle, Wallace Coghill, of Sykesville, was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, police said.

For Theresa Mills, the "most emotional day" came last June when the Marine Corps notification team visited her Laurel home to tell her that her older son had been killed in Afghanistan. The second most emotional day, she said, came Monday. In the morning, Mills traveled to Timonium, where Lance Cpl. Eugene C. Mills III was one of seven Marylanders honored at the annual Memorial Day observance at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. In the afternoon, she planned to see off her younger son, Jake, who was scheduled to leave Monday evening for Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. In between, she said she was "emotional, very emotional.

When a job change forced John and Peggy Culleton to relocate 30 years ago, they went in search of a "nice community. " What they found was Eldersburg. "In my little neighborhood, we have very quiet, very pleasant neighbors. It's a very stable neighborhood with not much turnover, and that's what I still like," said John Culleton. "Eldersburg is not flat, but gently rolling and is still a pretty place in many ways," Culleton said. "There's a good base of churches and synagogues, and that has become the glue that holds the community together.

U.S. Army Capt. Sara M. Knutson-Cullen, a former Eldersburg resident who died in a helicopter crash in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on March 11, will be among the honorees at the May 27 Memorial Day service at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium. Knutson-Cullen, 27, was a 2003 graduate of Liberty High School and a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. She was assigned to Headquarters Company, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, and had previously served at Fort Wainwright in Alaska.

An Eldersburg man died Saturday when he was ejected from his vehicle in a head-on collision, according to the Carroll County sheriff's office. Leif Erik Foerter, 35, was killed as the result of a crash at Piney Ridge Parkway and Johnsville Road in Eldersburg about 1:15 p.m. A Honda Accord traveling west on Piney Ridge entered the intersection and struck a Jeep Wrangler that Foerter was driving north on Johnsville. Foerter, who was thrown from the Jeep, was transported to Carroll Hospital Center, where he died.

Fifth District County Commissioner Doug Howard, who represents Sykesville and Eldersburg, will host a town meeting on Monday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m., at the South Carroll Senior Center, 5928 Mineral Hill Road, Eldersburg. The meeting will be the first in a series of eight monthly sessions for the 5th District. Howard said law enforcement will be the primary focus of the Oct. 8 meeting, with representatives from the Sheriff's Office providing information on policing efforts in the Eldersburg/Sykesville area.

Section six has opened at Eldersburg Estates in Eldersburg, where Masonry Macks Homes Inc. is building 210 homes on lots from one-quarter acre to one-half acre.Standard features in the Carroll County community include gas heat and hot water, full basements, six-panel Colonial doors, prewiring for telephone and cable TV, central air conditioning, and public sewer and water.The Hillstead is a 1,823-square-foot Colonial with a front porch and a beginning price of $177,300.The first floor has a foyer, guest closet, 13-by-13-foot living room, 10-by-11-foot dining room, 12-by-11-foot kitchen, powder room, 15-by-11-foot family room and one-car garage.

Just about the only excitement in the semi-rural residential neighborhood near the intersection of Oklahoma and Bennett roads, in Eldersburg, is provided by occasional errant motorists who misjudge the sharp downhill curve on Oklahoma where it approaches Bennett from the northeast and either end up in a ditch or in somebody's yard. But the billboard-sized banner that one homeowner recently put in his front yard - along with dozens of smaller signs that pepper Oklahoma Road - reveal that this neighborhood, where old and new residential subdivisions abut a few remaining farms and a stretch of the Liberty Reservoir watershed, is in the midst of a controversy.

Board of County Commissioners President Doug Howard will host an open meeting Oct. 27 to discuss bicycle paths and walking trails in the Freedom Area. The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at the South Carroll Senior Center, 5928 Mineral Hill Road, Eldersburg. County staff will be on hand to discuss the trails presently available in the area, proposed trails and the processes by which trails are designed, developed and implemented.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office says a 35-year-old man was killed on Saturday afternoon in a crash at the intersection of Johnsville Road and Piney Ridge Parkway in Eldersburg. At approximately 1:15 p.m., Sheriff's Office personnel and members of the Sykesville Freedom District Fire Department responded to the accident scene, and medical personnel treated a male victim. This man, identified as Leif Erik Foerter, 35, had life threatening injuries and was transported to Carroll Hospital Center, where he died.

A half-empty former shopping mall in Eldersburg will be remade as a Walmart-anchored plaza under plans announced Monday by owner Black Oak Associates. In a move long awaited by many in the community, the Owings Mills-based developer will spend $50 million to renovate Carrolltown Center into Eldersburg Commons, with new restaurants and home, fashion and beauty retailers. For a decade, Carrolltown Center has been a community sore spot. The interior of the small community mall was closed in 2005, and the property languished with a diminishing roster of tenants and an abandoned movie theater.

Redevelopment plans for Carrolltown Center will be unveiled at the next Town Hall meeting, hosted by Carroll County Commissioner Doug Howard. Dixon Harvey, of Black Oak Associates, will discuss plans and a timetable for the project at the meeting on Monday, April 22. "At long last, our community will see plans for the redevelopment of Carrolltowne Mall," Howard said in a press release. "This is an important milestone in our community and should be an exciting meeting. " The troubled shopping center at Liberty and Ridge roads has seen K-Mart and Sears anchor stores shuttered.

Gov. Martin O' Malley has ordered the U.S. and Maryland flags at state facilities flown at half-staff on Monday to honor Army Capt. Sara M. Knutson, a helicopter pilot from Eldersburg who died last month in Afghanistan. Knutson, 27, was one of five soldiers killed March 11 in the crash of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during training near Kandahar, the Pentagon said. A 2003 graduate of Liberty High School and a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Knutson is the only Marylander to die in Afghanistan this year.

Eldersburg resident James Whittenburg was named to the dean's list for the fall semester at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pa. He is a medical studies major. Kathleen Bird, a junior politics major from Sykesville, was named to the University of Dallas Honor Roll for the fall semester. Collin Mitchell Orf of Eldersburg, a freshman majoring in engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, was named to the honor list for the fall semester.

Sara Knutson Cullen was as comfortable in a dress and stiletto heels as she was smoking cigars and flying Black Hawk helicopters in Afghanistan - a driven and level-headed 27-year-old whose dreams stretched far beyond her roots in Carroll County, family and friends said Sunday. Cullen, a captain in the U.S. Army, died along with four other Army members in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan last Monday, the Department of Defense said. She is the first Marylander killed in Afghanistan this year.

When they opened Eldersburg's County Cork Wine Pub in 2010, business partners Arlene Stecher and Chris McManus were thinking of their neighbors. McManus and Stecher, both Eldersburg residents, wanted to build a spot where adults could gather with their friends, enjoying good food and drinks. They succeeded - and those neighbors have noticed. On a recent Thursday night, County Cork Wine Pub was packed with couples and chatty groups of friends. We lucked into the last available spot, a high-top table in an alcove toward the back of the restaurant.

Weeks ago, when 5th District County Commissioner Doug Howard scheduled his April 30 meeting with Eldersburg residents, he assumed it would be the usual "get-together" where the commissioner gives updates on ongoing issues such as the county budget, funding for schools and the future of the beleaguered Carrolltown Center mall. But by the time this past week's meeting rolled around, a more pressing matter steam rolled other issues aside - namely the controversial proposal to build a 235-unit retirement facility on the 16-acre Ely property near the Oklahoma and Bennett roads in Eldersburg.

FIRE* Eldersburg: Sykesville, Winfield and Gamber companies responded to a house fire on White Rock Road at 3:07 p.m. Saturday for 29 minutes.

Century High School in Sykesville was evacuated Tuesday afternoon after threatening graffiti was written on a bathroom wall, Carroll County school officials said. An Alert Now electronic message sent out by the school system about 2 p.m. said that law enforcement officials conducted a "comprehensive" search of the school and found "no threat or danger. " Students and staff re-entered the building, the message said. The incident came a day after graffiti was found on a bathroom wall at Sykesville Middle School that indicated a threat to the building, according to another Alert Now electronic message from the school system.

Maryland's first Angel of Hope statue stands in a garden across from the South Carroll Senior and Community Center, on Mineral Hill Road, in Eldersburg. The statue, depicting an angel with her arms raised and standing about 4 feet tall, is surrounded by two benches and a memorial wall. When it was placed and dedicated earlier this year, it was the hope of the Eldersburg-based JOSH (Joining Others Seeking Healing) Foundation that people would find comfort in the meditation garden while remembering their loved ones, especially children.