Evening Sun

W. Clark Gaither and his wife were lingering over cups of post-lunch coffee in the kitchen of their Clarksville farmhouse. It was shortly after noon Nov. 23, 1962. For crew and passengers on board United Flight 297, bound from Newark, N.J., to Atlanta, it was just another routine trip on a brilliant late autumn afternoon. Traveling at 10,000 feet, the plane was preparing for a landing at Washington's National Airport, its only stop on its journey to Atlanta. Air traffic controllers at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center and the Washington Approach Control Center radioed reports to Flight 297 that small flocks of large birds had been sighted by other pilots in the area.

TWENTY-eight years ago I stumbled into The Evening Sun and into the patient arms of Tommy Flannery. It was the bright idea of the editor-in-chief Price Day, to hire an untested, unpublished cartoonist from a business background, to replace Tommy who replaced Richard "Moco" Q. Yardley. My general demeanor can be described as unadulterated panic. Tommy treated my condition with generous doses of good humor and calm.Tommy knew that editorial cartooning couldn't be taught. Editorial cartooning is a bad habit carried over from childhood, which a few adults find themselves miraculously being paid to do instead of being sent to the principal's office.

Hans Marx, a former Sunpapers photographer whose memorable sepia-toned images graced the pages of The Sun, The Evening Sun and the Sunday Sun Magazine for nearly two decades, died in his sleep Tuesday at his residence in Lewes, Del., where he had lived since 1965. He was 83.An award-winning photojournalist who was widely exhibited in his prime, Mr. Marx was once described by a colleague as "firing a camera with the accuracy of Jesse James."Mr. Marx, who used a Speed Graphic or a Leica camera, became a staff photographer for the Sunpapers in 1937.

It was an innocuous-enough weather forecast that greeted readers of The Sun and Evening Sun on March 28, 1942, as they busied themselves with preparations for Holy Week and Easter."

WHEN you visit The Newseum, a free newspaper museum in Arlington, Va., you can see 50 front pages of that day's American newspapers. Many look alike.Certain elements create the feeling of sameness. Small headlines explaining big headlines. Boxed headlines (called skyboxes) across the top. Indexes and digests of articles.There's some irony there. The Newseum's history gallery exhibits a rich variety of press individualism: Ernie Pyle's typewriter, H. L. Mencken's press badge, Nellie Bly's travels.

Hervey Brackbill(1901-1999)Hervey Brackbill was telegrapher, reporter, copy editor, birdwatcher, music critic, bird essayist, slot man, bird bander, features editor, birder. He died March 6. Two more years, and he would also have been a centenarian.Sighting that name as an Evening Sun editorial page byline, many Baltimoreans took it for a nom de birdplume. But no: Swiss forebears spelt it Brechbuehl.Brack was a printer's son. Leaving Lancaster, Pa., after high school, Brack worked for Western Union -- telegrams were yesterday's e-mail, sort of -- and then, in Baltimore, for the Associated Press.

TOM FLANNERY was a gentle, quiet man. So were the cartoons he drew for 31 years for this page and the Evening Sun.His clean, spare style and simplicity of thought masked a perceptiveness that could cut to the heart of an issue.Tom Flannery died in his sleep early yesterday at age 79. He was a gentle soul who developed his own, distinctive brand of cartooning that stood the test of time.He was deft with pen and ink, and also with charcoal. That gave his drawings a softness most of his contemporaries lacked.

Thomas F. Flannery, retired editorial cartoonist for The Sun and The Evening Sun whose trenchant yet subtle pen-and-ink cartoons made him a local institution, died in his sleep yesterday morning at his North Baltimore home. He was 79.For more than 30 years, the question, "Have you seen Flannery today?" was a frequent comment from readers of The Sunpapers."Tom was a wonderful man to work with," said Joseph R. L. Sterne, retired editorial page editor of The Sun. "He had a touch of Irish whimsy in him. He had a wonderfully sardonic outlook on life.

"Give me a good cartoonist," H. L. Mencken once wrote, "and I can throw out half the editorial staff." Typical Mencken extravagance, no doubt, but the Bard of Baltimore had some basis for his observation.For among his colleagues at The Sun in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties were Edmund Duffy, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who could unmask a Ku Kluxer as a pitiful loser or portray Hitler as a strutting monster, and Richard "Moco" Yardley, whose sunny, whimsical drawings were love notes to the life and lore of Maryland.

Edward J. McKee, 84, artist for Baltimore Sun Co.Edward J. McKee, a retired Baltimore Sun Co. artist, died Monday of heart failure at Good Samaritan Hospital. The 50-year Hamilton resident was 84.Known as "Mac," he joined The Sunday Sun in 1949 and later headed the universal art department, which served The Sun, The Evening Sun and Sunday Sun, from 1974 until 1979 when the unit was dissolved.He spent the last five years of his career as an artist for The Evening Sun, retouching photographs and producing graphics and illustrations for news stories.

With his bushy beard and ever-present pipe, Bill Burton looked like the outdoors writer from Central Casting. His basement resembled a tackle shop. His stories were lively and memorable, as you would expect. But truth be told, Bill Burton was a softie, with a heart of gold and a center as squishy as an Easter peep. He loved cats. And beautiful sunrises. And fresh, ripe Maryland peaches just off the tree. And kids, especially his granddaughter Mackenzie Noelle Boughey, whom he called "Grumpy."

Bill Burton, who fished with presidents, Colts and Orioles, told generations of Maryland anglers where the big ones were biting and was commissioned an "Admiral of the Chesapeake" by one governor, died early Monday morning of cancer. He was 82. A Pasadena resident, Mr. Burton was for 37 years the outdoors editor of The Evening Sun before taking a buyout in 1992. He continued to write for the Bay Weekly and The Capital in Annapolis until his second retirement in late June. "It's a sad day. We've lost a great guy. He was a legend," said Brooks Robinson, the Orioles Hall of Fame third baseman who fished and hunted with Mr. Burton.

Adelaide C. Rackemann, a former librarian who was also a poet, conservationist, horticulturist, bird watcher and a freelance writer, died Sunday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after suffering a fall at her Bare Hills home. She was 86. Adelaide Hardcastle Crawley, the daughter of a lawyer and a homemaker, was born in New York City and raised in Port Washington, N.Y. After graduating from Port Washington High School in 1941, she earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1945.

Spencer Livingston Davidson III, a former Evening Sun reporter who later became an associate editor at Time magazine, died Wednesday of heart failure at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, N.Y. He was 85. Mr. Davidson, the son of a newspaperman, was born in Baltimore and raised on 31st Street. His father, who died in 1929, was an assistant managing editor of The Sun. After graduating from McDonogh School in 1942, he served with an Army artillery unit during the Battle of the Bulge and was later a military policeman in Berlin.

Since his death several weeks ago, I've received a number of calls and e-mails from former students of Tom Longstreth, the celebrated St. Paul's School English teacher and coach, who was a much-beloved figure on the school's Brooklandville campus for 41 years. Tom was also my former neighbor and a prolific daily walker who could be seen striding along the streets of Riderwood, ramrod-straight and wearing his trademark khaki pants and blue button-down Oxford cloth shirt. In the warm months, he'd add a crumpled tennis hat to his wardrobe, his only concession to the elements.

Lucy A. Garvey, the first woman to serve as an assistant state's attorney in Baltimore and who became the first woman appointed to the post of master of chancery for what is now the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, died Sunday of cancer at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. She was 86. Lucy Ann Garvey, the daughter of Irish immigrants from County Clare, was born in Baltimore and raised on South Morley Street in Irvington. Master Garvey was a 1940 honors graduate of Western High School, where she was awarded the Peabody Award.

Seventeen years after he flew the coop, the Oriole bird has returned to The Baltimore Sun. Starting tomorrow, the whimsical cartoon - a stamp-sized favorite of Sun readers during the team's heyday 40 years ago - will regularly grace the sports pages. "Hopefully, in that one inch of space, this classic little Oriole can capture the essence of last night's game," said Mike Ricigliano, the cartoonist who will draw it. Ricigliano's oddball work has appeared in The Sun (and, previously, The Evening Sun)

The other evening, I was rereading a signed copy of Hamilton Owens' book, Baltimore on the Chesapeake, which he presented to The Sun library in 1941. There is no inscription save a quick "Hamilton Owens" written in black ink in a tight script on the book's flyleaf. I last looked at the book, a whimsical popular history of the city published by Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc., probably 30 years ago. What prompted me to pick it up again was the death of Hamilton Owens' son, Gwinn F. Owens, at 87, on March 22. Gwinn, who had been a longtime reporter and editor, was the first op-ed page editor of The Evening Sun's "Other Voices" page when it was unveiled in 1979.

Gwinn F. Owens, a retired editor and editorial writer who made The Evening Sun's op-ed page a popular feature with readers and contributors, died of complications from dementia Sunday at College Manor nursing home in Lutherville. The longtime Ruxton resident was 87. Mr. Owens was born in Seven Oaks, England, the son of James Hamilton Owens, a veteran newspaperman, and Olga Owens, a homemaker and musician. They moved to Lutherville and later Riderwood, where he grew up, when his father was named editor of The Evening Sun in 1922.

Lydia M. Wells, a homemaker and longtime Stoneleigh resident, died Wednesday at Manor Care Ruxton. She was 91. Lydia Montague Jones, the daughter of a cotton merchant, was born in Charlotte, N.C., and raised in Atlanta. She was educated at a private academy, family members said. In 1937, she married William J. Wells Jr., a reporter and editor for The Sun and The Evening Sun. At the time of his 1973 retirement after a 45-year career with the newspapers, he was senior makeup editor of the evening paper.