Heartlands

HEARTLANDS AT Severna Park, the $7.8 million assisted-living community on Benfield Road scheduled to open Monday, looks like a resort.Heartlands, which will be home for 68 residents, was developed and will be managed by Constellation Senior Services Inc. of Columbia, a subsidiary of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co."Heartlands is designed to feel like home," said Kathryn "Jonesy" Maxson, director of marketing.Features include a lobby with seating around a piano, a "bistro" where residents can sit at small tables to enjoy coffee and muffins, a chapel, a beauty parlor and Internet connections.

Hattie M. Wiseman, a homemaker and longtime volunteer, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at The Heartlands at Ellicott City, an assisted-living facility. She was 85 and had lived in Ellicott City for more than 40 years. Hattie Marie Costello was born and raised in Maryville, Mo. After graduating from high school in Maryville, she attended Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, now Northwest Missouri State University. In 1945, she married Richard A. Wiseman, a National Security Agency analyst.

After seven months of negotiation, a Columbia-based nursing home developer could be close to buying Heartlands, an Ellicott City retirement community.Constellation Health Services Inc. -- which owns nursing homes and retirement communities through joint ventures with other developers -- hopes to purchase the 163-unit campus within a month, said President James W. Jeffcoat.Owned by Health Park Housing Limited Partnership, Heartlands has apartments and one- and two-bedroom cottages -- all rentals -- for independent seniors.

LAS VEGAS - As outlying sagebrush here was quickly devoured by starter homes and chain stores, Las Vegas began grappling with the kinds of problems that long have vexed California - crowded classrooms, packed freeways, lack of water, immigrants who struggle to learn English and rising poverty. Similar issues recently have bedeviled the Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque, N.M., metropolitan areas. By 2040, Las Vegas and its fast-growing brethren will be home to nearly 12.7 million more people.

Constellation Health Services Inc. completed an acquisition of the Heartlands in Ellicott City, the latest effort by the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. subsidiary to expand its retirement community portfolio.The roughly $11.6 million purchase comes in response to the aging of the U.S. population, a trend that has made senior citizens and baby boomers two of the largest demographic groups in America.With the purchase, Constellation intends to develop a new $6 million, 65-unit assisted-living facility within the 50-acre Heartlands community, adding to the 164 rental units constructed since 1986.

A Business Digest item in yesterday's editions of The Sun misstated the business relationship of two Ellicott City facilities involved in an alliance. Constellation Senior Services Inc. operates Heartlands Senior Living Village. St. Agnes HealthCare operates St. Agnes Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, which is adjacent to the Heartlands campus. Under the agreement, St. Agnes will provide health services such as rehabilitation and respiratory therapy for Heartlands residents.The Sun regrets the error.

On May 6, 2006, H. CARLTONCRUTCHFIELD; beloved husband of the late Kathryn Crutchfield; dear father of Carol and Carl. Also survived by two grandchildren and one great-grandchild and his good friends at Heartlands. Services private.

ROSE M. MORGANTE (LaSpina)-of Ellicott City, formerly of Hyde Park, MA. Died February 4. Beloved mother and grandmother. Funeral and Interment in Massachusetts. Memorial service Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 6:00 P.M. at Heartlands of Ellicott City, 3004 N. Ridge Road, Ellicott City, MD.

The lights at Heartlands Retirement Center in Ellicott City are going out -- literally.Since May, the 164-unit senior complex has suffered a series of power outages, cutting electricity to air conditioners, elevators and lights, and leaving tenants to depend on flashlights for as long as 16 hours.The irony is that Heartlands is owned by Constellation Health Services Inc., a subsidiary of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.Most residents contacted declined to comment, but at least one tenant confirmed the outages.

SUZANNE KAY SMITH was born on October 11, 1936, in Rockford, IL, and died on September 6, 2004 in Balto., MD. Her mother was the late, Laura Barnes Johnson Redway, and her step-father was the late Leon (Bill) Jerome Redway. She leaves many friends in the Scottish Terrier Club of the Greater Baltimore Area. The following special friends will miss her, Alice and Ed Watkins, Keith and Mary Ann Gehle, and Irma Ponce. She was a resident of the Heartlands Retirement Community in Ellicott City, MD and leaves many friends and acquaintances there.

RAMADI, Iraq -- Anbar province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing, and the insurgency appears to be in retreat. "Many people are challenging the insurgents," said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, "We know we haven't eliminated the threat 100 percent." Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against al-Qaida in Iraq.

ROSE M. MORGANTE (LaSpina)-of Ellicott City, formerly of Hyde Park, MA. Died February 4. Beloved mother and grandmother. Funeral and Interment in Massachusetts. Memorial service Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 6:00 P.M. at Heartlands of Ellicott City, 3004 N. Ridge Road, Ellicott City, MD.

Documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi is back on the road for HBO again, and this time her hand-held camera is trained on Christian evangelicals. The result, Friends of God, isn't as skillfully focused as Pelosi's Emmy Award-winning Journeys with George, a look at life on the press plane of George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign. But the filmmaker, the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, nevertheless delivers an engaging and occasionally insightful exploration of a group that numbers 50 million Americans by the most conservative estimates.

BEIRUT -- Israeli forces killed 33 agricultural workers in northeast Lebanon yesterday in a wave of airstrikes that also pierced the country's Christian heartland for the first time and severed its last major highway link to the outside. Hezbollah militants responded by firing a missile that exploded just 30 miles north of Tel Aviv, the farthest they have reached into Israel. The rest of northern Israel came under a daylong barrage that killed three people and injured more than 30. Israeli soldiers pushed slowly north from the border in heavy ground fighting that left three Israeli soldiers dead.

On May 6, 2006, H. CARLTONCRUTCHFIELD; beloved husband of the late Kathryn Crutchfield; dear father of Carol and Carl. Also survived by two grandchildren and one great-grandchild and his good friends at Heartlands. Services private.

BOSTON -- Some years ago, Rolling Stone magazine published a survey on the attitudes of baby boomer parents. The gist of it was that the people who had gone through the sexual revolution did everything, regretted nothing, and wanted their children to do none of it. This didn't surprise me. Nothing changes your perspective as much as becoming a parent, and the first order of child-raising is protection. I remember Hillary Rodham Clinton's wry sexual advice back when she was first lady and the mother of a teenager: "My theory is don't do it before you're 21, and then don't tell me about it."

Heartlands at Severna Park names executive directorThe Heartlands at Severna Park, a new assisted living community for seniors at 715 Benfield Road, has announced that Betty C. Moss has been named executive director.Opening in January, the community is being developed and managed by Constellation Senior Services, a subsidiary of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.Information: 410-729-1600.Salvation Army looking for fund-drive organizersThe Salvation Army of Annapolis is encouraging companies and individuals to conduct fund drives to help it meet the anticipated greater needs of families this year.

A 29-year-old man and a woman who appeared to be in her 20s were found dead in a car on the parking lot of the Heartlands in Ellicott City yesterday after they apparently committed suicide by running a hose from the car's exhaust pipe into the car, Howard County police said.Police did not release the victims' names. They were trying to notify the man's family last night and had not been able to identify the woman.About 7 a.m. yesterday, an employee of the Heartlands senior apartment complex noticed the car in the 3000 block of N. Ridge Road with its windows fogged, police said.

KENDRA AUSBY tells a humorous but illustrative story about one of her earliest experiences in lacrosse that speaks volumes about where the sport is in its appeal to people of color. Ausby, who coaches the City girls lacrosse team, said that during one of her early practices as a walk-on at UMBC in the early 1990s, she had a total meltdown and went off to a corner to be a little verklempt. Ausby said the coach wandered over and gave her a pep talk, encouraging her not to get down on herself because she was the only African-American player on the team.

ST. LOUIS - First things first for the Red Sox, now that they're in alien territory called the National League: Finding a glove for David Ortiz. "We're trying to buy it back off of eBay," said Red Sox first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, cracking the kind of jokes that belie an American League team that faces the so-called daunting task of playing "real" baseball. Yesterday, the scruffy, loose and post-Yankees Red Sox officially infiltrated St. Louis, a Midwestern locale that seems way too placid to contain this motley crew.