Family Feud

A son refuses to have contact with his divorced father. A failing family business divides two generations. A brother and sister no longer speak because one got a bigger share of their late father's estate. Barbara LeBey has heard all the stories about estranged families -- each uglier than the last. But she steadfastly believes most of these relationships can be repaired. And she ought to know -- she's done it herself. "The reality is that most estrangements are not over things that are so heinous," says LeBey, an Atlanta attorney and former administrative law judge.

Just a couple of years ago, he was a Baron of the Beltway. By early this year, he was nearly broke. "If Larry Rachuba's in trouble, who's safe?" was the refrain in real estate circles around town.Lawrence R. Rachuba was a heavy hitter among local developers -- a man who took over one of metropolitan Baltimore's biggest development companies from his father-in-law, Ralph DeChiaro, and led it to even greater heights. He built Baltimore' County's glitziest hotel. And he took Towson Town Center from a dowdy also-ran and brought it into the front ranks of Baltimore-area malls.

The older brother of one of New Jersey's largest cranberry growers has gone to court seeking to stop the sale of nearly 10,000 acres of family farms and pristine woodlands in South Jersey to a preservationist group. In a lawsuit that outlined a long and bitter financial feud, the brother, Mark A. DeMarco, 72, accused the grower, J. Garfield DeMarco, 64, of mismanaging the family cranberry business, spending corporate funds on himself and improperly trying to sell the family property to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation for about 30 percent of its market value.

WASHINGTON -- Evelyn Davidson was asking for help."I need some Glenelg parents to calm me down," Davidson said.Louise Franklin, a family friend, offered a solution. "You need a seat belt, lady," Franklin said.Davidson was excited, and rightly so. Sitting in the stands last night at Georgetown's McDonough Arena, she finally got to see what she had come for.Marisa and Elisa, her two children, were together on the same court, playing Division I volleyball.Marisa, a junior, started for Villanova in last night's match.

A 113-year-old local commercial bakery mired in a family struggle over its future said yesterday that it had agreed to sell a majority stake to H&S Bakery Inc. Schmidt Baking Co. Inc. of Fullerton, which makes Blue Ribbon bread, will sell 58 percent of its shares to H&S; members of the Schmidt family will retain the balance. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The sale would consolidate control of the two largest commercial bakeries in the region, although John Paterakis Sr., president of H&S, said Schmidt would be operated independently of his company.

Ray Combs,40, a comedian who followed Richard Dawson as host of the game show "Family Feud," committed suicide Sunday in Glendale, Calif. Mr. Combs hanged himself at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, police said. A father of six, he apparently was anguished over his pending divorce and had tried for weeks to commit suicide, police said.Pub Date: 6/04/96

At the 75-80 Dragway it was a family feud as Westminster's Malcolm Ford won the motorcycle class against his brother, Marion Ford from Hampstead.Todd Harris of Westminster won the Class I competition in five rounds of elimination in his dragster.Tom Humm of Taneytown defeated Westminster's George Hoff in the final round of the Class II Competition. Jim Peddicord of Westminster was a semifinalist in Class II, and Mount Airy's Joe Henry was also a semifinalist in his Camaro in Class I.I= Westminster's Josh Wagner won the New Jr. Dragster Class.

Two personnel shifts in the WBAL-TV newsroom are raising eyebrows - a noteworthy imminent departure and a noteworthy recent ascension. First, popular morning and midday news anchor Dina Napoli vanished from the air earlier this month after privately declaring her intention to quit; she was given three weeks paid vacation by the Channel 11 brass to reconsider. Yesterday, after a reporter's inquiries, WBAL publicly acknowledged that Napoli won't be staying at the station. Instead, she's headed to Italy for culinary school.

A few cable stations largely unavailable in the Baltimore area or scheduled to be launched in the next year or so:* Americana Network: Original programming, documentaries and videos on American musical styles ranging from bluegrass to blues, country to gospel, jazz to folk.* The ECO Channel: Headquartered in Ellicott City and scheduled to go on the air toward the end of the year; will feature fiction and nonfiction TV with an environmental theme.* The Employment Channel: Where to find a job, how to keep a job and what's happening in the job market.

Arguments are scheduled Monday before the Maryland Court of Special Appeals in a case that will decide where Sultana Edery, who died Feb. 21 at the age of 86, will ultimately be laid to rest. The Montgomery County resident was buried in Adelphi, at the Mount Lebanon Cemetery, by one side of the family shortly after her death. But another side claims that she really wanted to be buried in Israel, where she held citizenship and lived for a third of her life as an "Orthodox, observant Jew," according to court records.