Hagerstown

Reacting to concerns of elected officials in Western Maryland, the O'Malley administration announced yesterday that it is changing the way inmates are released from state prisons. Most inmates in the rural prisons in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore are from the Baltimore-Washington metro area. When an inmate's sentence ends, he is given $50 in cash and dropped off at a bus station. Under the new policy, corrections officials say, inmates will be transported to a prison in Baltimore or one closer to their home community a day or so before discharge.

HAGERSTOWN -- A judge has allowed the state to seek the death penalty for a state prison inmate charged with murdering a correctional officer. Howard County Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney ruled that the de facto moratorium on executions established by a Maryland Court of Appeals decision in December doesn't preclude prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty. Attorneys for Brandon T. Morris, 21, had argued during a hearing Friday in Ellicott City that unless the state's notice of intent to seek the death penalty were stricken, Morris would be denied due process because he would be tried without knowing what punishment he may face.

A whopping 1 percent of the 36,000 people of Hagerstown were born outside the United States, so maybe the attempt to resettle about 40 refugees a year there was asking for trouble. In any case, trouble was what it got. A few townspeople were up in arms over the hiring of refugees - mostly from Africa and the former Soviet Union - at a local plastics plant. Theirs, by the way, were among the 2,000 jobs that Hagerstown has added just since 2006. Then a pregnant woman from Burundi had a spell of morning sickness on a public street, and once the hazmat team had arrived in full moonsuit get-up, you could guess that the municipal welcome mat wasn't going to stay out much longer.

HAGERSTOWN -- Long Reach's girls team earned 24 points by finishing 1-2-3 in the 55 dash and sprinted its way to a second straight 2A-3A West Regional indoor championship last night at Hagerstown Junior College.The Lightning scored in six events, and three girls -- juniors Teyarnte Carter and Cynthia Nicholls and sophomore Rolanda Howard -- were responsible for most of their 71 points.Thomas Johnson of Frederick County finished second in the girls with 57 points, and River Hill and Montgomery County's Walter Johnson tied for third with 44.Thomas Johnson earned the boys title with 78 points, 30 more than second-place River Hill.

HAGERSTOWN -- A local Little League's unsavory side is exposed on national television. The grown-ups follow this act by fighting bitterly for control of the baseball program, staging one coup after another.A father critical of league officials is arrested when he defies an order to stay away from the fields. Two candidates for the league's board turn out to have criminal records. Finally, the home office in Williamsport declares the local program's charter "on hold."Are we having fun yet?

A Hagerstown woman was killed Saturday night while trying to retrieve her dog on Interstate 70 in Frederick County, state police said.Leslie Danielle Welden, 31, of the 200 block of Bentley Court got into an apparent dispute with an acquaintance while sitting in a 1998 Ford Escort parked on the shoulder of westbound I-70 about 11: 45 p.m., left the car and ran across the three lanes to the median strip, Cpl. Julio Valcarcel said.Valcarcel said Welden's dog jumped out of the car and followed her but stopped in the fast lane.

Robert Link, 79, executive at container companyRobert U. Link, a former container company executive, died Thursday of cardiac arrest at Oak Crest Village retirement community. He was 79.Mr. Link, who grew up in Patterson Park, graduated from Mount St. Joseph High School in 1938 and attended Loyola College before joining the Army during World War II.He was assigned to a chemical warfare unit at Aberdeen Proving Ground and spent most of his enlistment training officer candidates. He was discharged as a captain in 1946.

HAGERSTOWN -- People in this part of the state speak affectionately of the ugly duckling fighter plane the Air Force didn't want and cursed with the undignified title of "Warthog.""Every time I see the A-10 mentioned in news stories out of Kosovo, or see one fly over the house, I take a lot of pride in the fact that many of my neighbors helped build it," said Lois Henry, a resident of this Western Maryland town where the final assembly was done on the strange-looking jet.Henry worked for Fairchild Industries, a now-defunct company that built the flying tank-killer at a factory off a runway of Hagerstown Regional Airport.

A large-caliber handgun used to kill a man in New York state this year has been traced to two Hagerstown men, who have been charged in criminal summonses with violating Maryland firearms laws, state police said.A New York man has been arrested and charged in the killing.Tests and gun-tracing efforts by state police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms revealed a 9 mm Ruger used in the July 24 killing of a Mount Vernon, N.Y., man was legally purchased by Kane Sylvester, 23, of Hagerstown in September 1998 at a gun shop, authorities said.

Edward Joseph Miller, a retired state highway engineer and engineering consultant, died of a heart attack Friday at Washington County Hospital in Hagerstown. He was 69.Mr. Miller, a former Catonsville resident, had worked for the State Roads Commission -- later the State Highway Administration -- as a construction engineer in Baltimore before being transferred to Western Maryland about 35 years ago. He resided in Hagerstown.He was the district engineer for construction in the State Highway Administration's western-most district, which encompasses Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties, until his retirement from the agency about 20 years ago.He then founded SWEMCO, Inc., a Hagerstown engineering consulting company, which he ran for several years before retiring.

MARIE L., 99, of Hagerstown, MD, died Saturday, October 10, 2009 at the Northwest Hospital Center, Randallstown. Born November 24, 1909 in Portland, OR, the daughter of the late Frederick William and Anne Marie (Ritzmann) Zeller. Wife of the late Howard Tilden Witmyer who died June 2, 1987. Marie is survived by one son, Timothy F. Witmyer, daughter-in-law, Jannette J. Witmyer, of Pikesville, MD and one daughter, Anne M. Witmyer of Hagerstown, MD. Funeral services will be 1 P.M., Friday at the Gerald N. Minnich Funeral Home, 305 N. Potomac Street, Hagerstown.

Marie L. Funeral services will be 1:00 P.M. Friday at the Gerald N. Minnich Funeral Home, 305 North Potomac Street, Hagerstown. Internment in St. Marks Episcopal Church Cemetery, Boonsboro, MD. Visitation 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. Thursday, at the funeral home. Memorial contributions to ARC of Washington County, 820 Florida Avenue, Hagerstown, MD 21740. The Gerald N. Minnich Funeral Home, Bryan K. Kenworthy P.A., 305 North Potomac Street, Hagerstown has been entrusted with the arrangements. Online condolences are accepted at www.geraldminnichfuneralhome.

HAGERSTOWN - -There were two different town hall meetings in Western Maryland on Wednesday afternoon, but Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin only made it to one of them. That was his question-and-answer session in a packed Hagerstown auditorium. It included loud, red-faced rants by angry voters who wanted the Democratic lawmaker to know that they don't trust him or, for that matter, believe a word that he says. But there was another civic gathering, too, which took place just outside and got little media attention.

WILLIAM LEE SPRANKLE, 79, of 1158 Luther Drive, Hagerstown, Maryland, died Saturday, February 7, 2009 at the Washington County Hospital. William was born on August 14, 1929 in Hagerstown, Maryland. He was the son of M. Genevie Moser Sprankle of Hagerstown, MD and the late Raymond Ellsworth Sprankle. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He was retired from the A & P Stores after forty years of service. He was a member of Christ's Reformed Church. He is survived by two sisters, Beverly Smith and husband, Dean of Dundalk, MD and Barbara Adams and husband, William of Middletown, MD; one brother, Larry Sprankle and wife Joann of Hagerstown, MD; ten nieces and nephews.

Three men stabbed on Harford County road 1 Three men were stabbed yesterday morning on Mountain Road in Joppa, according to Harford County police. The unidentified men had left the Port Sports Bar and Nightclub in Fallston about 1:50 a.m. when they got into an argument with one of the eventual assailants, according to police. As the three men were traveling south on Mountain Road near Old Mountain Road North, three vehicles approached them from the rear, police say. The suspects' vehicles formed a road block, forcing the victims' car off to the side of the road, according to police.

On January 27, 2009 in Frederick, MD. Joseph J., Jr Relatives and friends are invited to call at the Minnich Funeral Home, 415 East Wilson Boulevard, Hagerstown, MD 21740 on Saturday, January 31 for a memorial service to be held at 3:00 P.M. Memorial Masses will be held at St. Ann Hagerstown and St. Ursula, Parkville on dates to be determined. Interment at St. Paul Cemetery, Myersville, MD.

If you're seeking the boundary between Ravens country and Steelers territory, look no farther than the floor of a ballroom in Hagerstown. The dividing line that separates fans of the two NFL teams will run down the middle of the Grand Ballroom at the Hager Hall Conference and Event Center. The owners of the expansive complex have invited fan clubs of both teams to watch tomorrow's AFC Championship showdown, and they will split the room. Purple-and-black chairs on one side, yellow-and-black on the other.

Marianne Draper, a retired bookstore sales clerk and book collector, died of cancer Monday, on her 67th birthday, at Northwest Hospital Center. Marianne Stine was born and raised in Hagerstown. She was a 1959 graduate of South Hagerstown Senior High School and attended Hagerstown Junior College. The former longtime Ten Hills resident, who had lived in recent years on Cromarty Road in Baltimore County, had worked at Cokesbury Bookstore on Rolling Road from 1991 until 2005. "For the last three years, she worked as a caregiver for a stroke victim," said a son, Jared Draper of Odenton.

Volvo AB of Sweden said yesterday that it is cutting production and workers at its Mack Powertrain Division plant in Hagerstown to reduce costs because sales of its trucks and buses have dropped. The Hagerstown plant will reduce production of its transmissions by a third and of its engines by 25 percent, said Ilse Ghysens, a plant spokesman. The changes are effective Jan. 25. The cuts were first reported by the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown. "There is a lower demand due to the economic downturn, and we have to adjust," Ghysens said.

Volvo AB of Sweden said yesterday that it would embark on a $50 million expansion and add 50 workers to its Mack Powertrain Division plant in Hagerstown as part of a sweeping restructuring across the company. But the truck maker also announced it would lay off up to three-quarters of its 120 workers at a parts facility in Baltimore as the company moves to streamline some operations. The changes in Maryland are a small piece of a plan outlined by Volvo, which acquired Mack in 2001, that executives said would make the truck company more cost-efficient.