Gable

Spring arrives this week and who among us is not anxious to enjoy a bit of outdoor living -- without the bugs and the heat?Homeowners are going undercover with stylish screened porches that provide a personal open-air retreat with all the comforts and beauty of home -- along with the best that Mother Nature has to offer.Today's screened porch is more than a white aluminum rectangular addition that's shady and bug-free. It is a fashionable warm-weather room that blends beautifully in style and materials with the exterior of the home.

It almost didn't happen at all, much less one night.Myrna Loy turned it down.So did Miriam Hopkins and Margaret Sullavan.Then Constance Bennett said she'd buy it for herself but Capra wouldn't sell it; Bette Davis wanted to do it but Warners said no. Loretta Young wanted to do it, but Capra said no. Carole Lombard turned it down, to star in the famous (huh?) "Bolero."Finally Harry Cohn, the crass vulgarian who ran Columbia Studios, suggested Claudette Colbert, who was largely famous at that time for taking a bath in asses' milk for Cecil B. DeMille.

ATLANTA -- Tom Brands is from Iowa. He wrestles. He lists chain saws as a form of relaxation. He prefers moose hunting in Alaska to sitting on a beach in Hawaii. He likes to mash opponents' faces into a mat.And the scary thing is, he has an identical twin brother who is even more intense.Yesterday, Brands followed in the footsteps of an Iowa legend and won a freestyle wrestling gold medal at the Centennial Summer Olympics. He beat Jang Jae-Sung of South Korea in the 136.5-pound final, 7-0.But he wasn't entirely satisfied.

Howard County police Pfc. Edward Sprinkle darted through the woods with his dog, Gable, on the trail of a suspected car thief who should have stayed on the road.On foot, the man was no match for Gable. Soon his arm was in the 6-year-old German shepherd's jaws as the dog pulled him from his hiding spot beneath a trailer in a Jessup industrial park.For such efforts, Officer Sprinkle will be honored as Police Officer of the Year at 7 o'clock tonight at the sixth annual Community Awards night of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce.

Dan Gable, the wrestling legend who now coaches at Iowa, said words last fall that Old Mill's Don Patterson will never forget."He said if you want to be good at something, you have to love it, and to love it, it has to be fun," Patterson said.Spending a few hours with Gable before he conducted a clinic at Lock Haven University left Patterson "on cloud nine."If there was any doubt about how he felt about wrestling, Gable's words removed it.To Patterson, wrestling is indeed fun.Until he was in ninth grade, Patterson was clueless about wrestling.

Joanne Hillman joins Long & Foster officeJoanne Hillman of Ellicott City has joined Long & Foster Realtors as a sales associate at the firm's Columbia office at 9801 Broken Land Parkway.Ms. Hillman holds a degree in marketing from Towson State University.Charles Evans joins BMA office in ColumbiaCharles R. Evans has joined BMA's Baltimore area office at 9881 Broken Land Parkway in Columbia.Mr. Evans has worked for more than 12 years in insurance and brokerage sales, most recently with CNA in Baltimore.

Although they hadn't met until yesterday, Officers Frederick Carter and Brendan Gable have a lot in common. Both are 29, and have been on the Baltimore County police force for about eight years.And, yesterday, the officers were named winners of The Baltimore Sun Police Officer of the Year awards at a luncheon ceremony at the Sheraton Hotel in Towson. They were chosen by a judging panel from among 56 nominated officers from 11 jurisdictions in Maryland.The public service winner, Officer Carter, community relations officer for the Towson precinct, sponsored numerous programs aimed at helping children, including a Christmas Toy program that raised $5,000 and a police trading card project designed to foster good will between police and young people.

We do not know whether O.J. Simpson is guilty of murder. But we do know, now, that he is guilty of beating his wife brutally. So all those people shouting ''Go, Juice'' were, in effect, cheering on the sidelines for each blow delivered to Nicole's face.Why would they do that? Why not? Male violence has been excused, when not glorified, in our culture.For just one example, take the movie ''Gone With the Wind.'' That film has often been criticized for its patronizing attitude toward blacks.

A Howard County policeman who helps young people both a work and in his off-duty hours, and a Baltimore County officer who shut down a drug-distribution house on his beat were named winners yesterday of The Baltimore Sun Police Officer of the Year awards.Howard County Officer 1st Class Charles M. Gable -- a former narcotics investigator who finds runaways and works with their families through his department's Youth Services Section -- received the award for community service.The grandson of Baltimore Patrolman John B. Bealefeld, who was fatally injured in the line of duty in 1945, Officer Gable, 41, ran Project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)

Administrators at Northeast High School knew four years ag of at least 10 young women rumored to have been involved with Ronald Walter Price, the teacher who has admitted to having sex with several of his students, an attorney for the Anne Arundel County Board of Education acknowledged yesterday.The names -- all of students who had since graduated -- were contained in notes taken in January 1989 by then-Assistant Principal Mary Gable, who was investigating claims that a student had had a sexual relationship with Mr. Price while she was in high school.

A posse full of soon-to-be-big-name movie stars comes out with guns a-blazing in John Sturges' 1960 The Magnificent Seven, airing at noon today on AMC. This tale of seven gunslingers (actually, six gun- and one knife-slinger) hired to protect a poor Mexican town from a band of nasty desperadoes is a classic for so many reasons: Elmer Bernstein's soaring score, Charles Lang's sparse cinematography, and a cast of then-unknowns, including Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson and James Coburn (who plays Britt, the guy with the knife)

March roared in like a laughing lion at Bowie Playhouse with 2nd Star Productions' opening of Ken Ludwig's comedy Leading Ladies. I laughed so often and so loudly on Saturday that I nearly lost my critic's anonymity, along with my dignity. It was comic relief for everyone tired of grappling with tax forms and hearing political campaign rhetoric. Ludwig's 2004 show is in the farcical tradition of his earlier hits, Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo, filled with colorful characters, coincidences, mistaken identities, an improbable plot and familiar one-liners to provide easy laughs appropriate to its nostalgic 1958 small-town setting.

A 10-year search for a Maryland fugitive ended in Arizona after a Howard County sheriff's investigator checking computer databases noticed that the man had recently obtained a driver's license there. Gilbert Blackman, 57, was arrested by Phoenix police Thursday, bringing to a close the longest-running fugitive search being conducted by the Howard County Sheriff's Office, Sgt. Charles Gable said yesterday. Blackman, formerly of the 6900 block of Knighthood Lane in Columbia, had been wanted in Maryland since 1996, when he disappeared after being charged with violating the terms of his probation.

On December 26, 2006, ANN ELLEN (nee Harrison), beloved wife of the late Dale Gable; devoted mother of Sarah E. Hess. Martha Ann Piteo, Catherine R. Eyre and Raymond D. Gable; daughter of the late Clarence M. and Sarah E. Harrison; sister of the late William P. Harrison. Also survived by six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Funeral Services will be held at E.F. Lassahn Funeral Home, P.A., 11750 Belair Road (Kingsville) on Thursday at 10 A.M. Visiting Wednesday 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens.

On June 17, 2004 RENA B. SUGAR (nee Valinsky); beloved wife of the late Ralph Sugar; beloved mother of Anne (Cookie) Rosenberg and Allan Sugar both of Baltimore, MD.; devoted sister of the late Sylvia Leasure; loving grandmother of Eric Rosenberg and the late Stuart Rosenberg; loving great grandmother of Stephen Rosenberg. Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road, at Mt. Wilson Lane on Sunday, June 20 at 10 A.M. Interment Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery, Berrymans Ln. In lieu of flowers contributions may be directed to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 200 E. Joppa Rd., #300 (21204)

On June 11, 2004, WILLIAM L. GABLE, JR.; beloved husband of Sadie Gable; brother of Eugene and Raymond Gable; son-in-law of Phern Strong. Also survived by many nieces and nephews. Services and interment private.

On May 25, 2003, GEORGE Y., beloved husband of the late Margaret W. (nee Withers); devoted father of Roberta Reed and Donald Gable; loving grandfather of Amanda and Michael Gable. A Memorial Service will be held at St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, 8 W. Overlea Ave., 21236, on Wednesday 2 P.M. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to St. James Lutheran Church or Glen Meadows Benevolent Fund, 11630 Glen Arm Rd, Glen Arm, MD 21057.

A colleague of reputed cult leader Scott Caruthers entered a guilty plea yesterday to a charge of conspiring to murder one of the group's business associates. David S. Pearl, 48, who has been jailed since his arrest in October 2001, will continue to pursue a plea that he is not criminally responsible, according to his attorney. Carroll Circuit Judge Michael M. Galloway said yesterday that he would not sentence Pearl until receiving a psychiatric report from Springfield Hospital Center, where staff doctors examined Pearl a few weeks ago. Caruthers, an author and inventor who has been described as the space-alien leader of a Westminster-based cult, is awaiting trial on similar charges and is undergoing psychiatric evaluations to determine whether he would be held criminally responsible.

IF YOU DRIVE past the historic Benson-Hammond House you may not realize you are looking at a new sign at the entrance. On closer inspection, however, you will see that the wood sign has been replaced with an exact replica - but this one is made of a more durable material. The original sign was designed, built and installed in 1989 by Paul Gable, president of Gable Signs Inc. of Pasadena. The sign was wrapped like a large gift and ceremoniously unwrapped on the occasion of the county's 339th birthday.

For one shining evening in 1999, Marylander Scott Caruthers was the toast of Philadelphia. The occasion was a $500,000 party that Caruthers threw for himself, celebrating an exhibit of his computer-generated drawings of starships and space aliens. Three hundred guests glided among ice sculptures and spreads of lobster and caviar, while a dance band played late into the night. Caruthers arrived in a limousine with a woman on either arm - wife Dashielle Lashra on one side, live-in companion Dulsa Naedek on the other.