Hunter

With Kevin McClatchy stepping down as the Pittsburgh Pirates' chief executive officer at the end of the season, it's unclear whether majority owner Robert Nutting will be looking for a baseball man or a business expert to run the much-maligned Bucs. If he's searching for someone within the game, though, Orioles vice president Jim Duquette seems like a logical candidate to at least get a phone call. There is an obvious connection between Nutting, president of a West Virginia-based newspaper company, and Duquette.

Ben Evan McLeod Jr., a retired oil company manager and a hunter, died of liver failure Dec. 5 at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Long Green resident was 79. Mr. McLeod was born and raised in Georgetown, S.C. After graduating from what is now Clemson University in 1950, he enlisted in the Army. Mr. McLeod served as a lieutenant with an ordnance unit in Korea and was discharged in 1952. He went to work that year at a Standard Oil Co. bulk-oil plant in Conway, S.C., driving an oil truck and later tanker trucks.

Special K The suspense ended two batters into the game. Erik Bedard struck out Jason Bartlett on a 1-2 curveball to break Mike Mussina's team single-season strikeout record of 218. Fans gave him a standing ovation and waved orange signs with his first name printed in black, the "K" enlarged to signify a strikeout. One side of the card had the letter backward, in case the batter was caught looking. Bedard didn't acknowledge the ovation, remaining on the mound as Torii Hunter stepped into the batter's box. Costly error The Twins took a 2-0 lead against Bedard in the first inning, but the blame didn't rest entirely on his shoulders.

The Rev. Molester Jack Hunter Sr., who was pastor of New Hope Christian Baptist Church for more than three decades and was a foster parent to more than 100 children, died of heart failure April 21 at a hospital in Atlanta. He was 86 and lived in Reisterstown. Mr. Hunter had been visiting a daughter in Atlanta when he became ill. He had lived on Presbury Street for 40 years before moving to Reisterstown in 1982. The son of sharecroppers, he was born and raised in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army and served in the Pacific.

Throughout yesterday's Arundel Duals, Broadneck senior Abe Hunter and Chesapeake junior Zach O'Keeffe wrestled with one eye on their opponents, and the other on each other. A returning runner-up in Anne Arundel County as well as the 4A-3A East Region and state tournaments to Annapolis' Bubby Graham, Hunter split time at 152 and 160 pounds while improving to 26-1 with eight victories yesterday, including a 5-0 shutout of Mount Mat Madness champ Nathan Cortes-Peck of DeMatha. Tom Mulligan (285)

Something should have happened by now, or so you might think after several months of speculation about the great Orioles rebuilding project that was supposed to begin this month. Club president Andy MacPhail still might get something done before the end of November, but his plan to remake the roster has been stalled temporarily by circumstances beyond his control - most notably the decision by the Florida Marlins to make third baseman Miguel Cabrera available for a possible blockbuster trade.

If ever a picture was worth a thousand words, the one that ran on The Sun's front page one day last week surely was: Against the backdrop of a big American flag, a towheaded little boy was lifted off the ground in a bearhug by a camouflage-clad soldier, whose tears traced a rivulet down his cheek. "Hunter had just said, `I love you very much, Uncle Daryl,' " the 4-year-old boy's mother, Teri McColligan, told me yesterday when I sought the thousand-word back story to the picture, " `and I'm going to miss you.' " Ergo the tears, and not just on Staff Sgt. Daryl Cheatham's face that Wednesday, when he and some 140 Maryland National Guard soldiers bid farewell to their families and boarded buses for Fort Dix, N.J., in advance of deploying to Iraq.

Saturday turned out to be not such a great day at the races for ABC or Channel 2, as Preakness viewership was off from last year.Nationally, the race did a 3.8 Nielsen overnight rating from a sampling taken of the country's largest television markets. That figure is off 7 percent from the 4.1 rating of 1998, and the race was badly beaten by the two NBA playoff games that ran during the 90 minutes that race coverage aired.The good news for ABC is that with Charismatic going for a Triple Crown in three weeks, the numbers for the Belmont should spike higher, if the past two years, when Triple Crowns were on the line, are any indication.

Six hours.In that span, the operator of a gas station in North Laurel says he could continue serving customers whom he expects to arrive in droves to get gas, a doughnut or a car wash.But some civic activists contend that those six hours will mean more noise, more intrusive lighting and possibly more crime for the area.At issue is a request by Joseph Duncan to operate the Exxon in the 9200 block of All Saints Road 24 hours a day, seven days a week.The Howard County Board of Appeals is set to make a preliminary decision on the request at a work session at 7: 30 p.m. Thursday in the George Howard Building in Ellicott City.

Jennie C. Hunter-Cevera, a California-based researcher who has held a variety of posts in industry and academia, was named president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute yesterday.Hunter-Cevera, 51, succeeds Rita R. Colwell, the institute's founder and first president, who left last year to become director of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.A native of West Virginia, Hunter-Cevera has been head of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

On April 16, 2009, PHYLLIS J. WILLIAMS-WHELCHEL, who is survived by her husband Tommie Whelchel, mother Margaret Dickerson, daughter Pamela J. Hunter, son Wallace Hunter, Jr., sisters Annie Travers, Jacqueline Williams, brothers Melvin Williams and William A. Bowell, five grandchildren, three great-grands and a host of other relatives. On Tuesday, friends may call Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services (east), 4905 York Road, where the family will receive friends from 4 to 8 P.M. On Wednesday, Mrs. Williams-Whelchel will lie in state at Vaughn C. Greene (East)

Robert E. Hunter Memorial service will be held in Berlin, MD at a later date.

On March 13, 2009 ROBERT JOSEPH HUNTER, devoted father of Katherine Kalbskopf and her husband Nicholas, Casey Hunter, Shawna Hunter and the late Robert J. Hunter III. Loving son of Robert J. Hunter, Sr. and the late Norma Hunter. Loving grandfather of Nicole Kalbskopf and Michael Waters. Also survived by four sisters and Bella. A Memorial Mass will be held at Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church on Friday at 11 A.M. Interment private.

When a slug from a deer hunter's shotgun shattered a window at a day care center in Clarksville last month, staff members inside were terrified, imagining anything from a crazed gunman to a sniper. Parents of children at Kid's Time Out Day Care Center were shocked, too, when they were notified about what happened. "I was horrified," said Carolyn Gale Sanford, whose 3-year-old was in the day care center at the time of the incident. Sanford testified during a crowded County Council hearing last week on a proposed measure to strengthen hunting rules in Howard.

This is a column about nothing. Or, as the Maryland-based company W.L. Gore and Associates calls it, "the science of nothing." Nothing is what scientists and military camouflage experts say deer see when a hunter wears a jacket and pants made of Optifade, a new pattern that will go on the market next season. For years, hunters have donned gear with leafy patterns, such as Mossy Oak and RealTree, that are supposed to make humans look like shrubbery. Blending in, it was thought, worked for hunters the way it worked for a geeky transfer student at a new high school.

Hunting buffer zone just isn't big enough The Baltimore Sun's editorial "A missed volley" (Jan. 7) and Candus Thomson's column ("Newest Howard County hunting bill misses the target - by a long shot," Jan. 4) criticizing a proposal to change hunting law after the near-tragedy at a Howard County day care center that was struck by a hunter's gunshot fail to consider the real issue. The safety of people in areas where deer hunting is conducted is at serious risk because of our inadequate laws.

The Howard County Council will be proposing its first bill of the new year tomorrow, and, wheeew, it's a stinker. On the surface, CB1-2009 seems like a rational response to an incident last month, when a hunter who should have known better opened fire on a deer and instead shot out the window of a day-care center 277 yards away. The state safety buffer zone is 150 yards, and this proposal would double that distance. But before everyone starts congratulating each other, let me rain on the parade by saying, "This is a knee-jerk, badly worded, sorry excuse for a solution that won't make a single person any safer."

An Ellicott City man whose stray bullet shattered the front window of a Howard County day care center last week has been charged with negligent hunting by Maryland Natural Resources Police. Investigators said yesterday that Richard Vernon Hoenes Jr., 41, fired his shotgun several times Dec. 10 at a deer that was between him and Kids Time Out in Clarksville. One of the slugs traveled about 277 yards through a farm field and woods, and hit the window. The slug was found on the windowsill.

Two state officials said yesterday that they will press for a review of the state law setting a buffer zone between hunters and occupied buildings after a stray slug from a deer hunter's shotgun shattered the front window of a Howard County day care center. The hunters were at a farm about 300 yards - nearly twice the required distance - behind Kids Time Out in Clarksville on Wednesday afternoon when they fired at least three times, police said. "That was just too close," said Del. Elizabeth Bobo, a Howard County Democrat and member of the House Environmental Matters Committee, which proposes laws for the Department of Natural Resources.

As tabloid reports of a sex scandal threatened former Sen. John Edwards' presidential campaign last December on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, two lawyers surfaced with written statements that appeared to exonerate him. One, Robert J. Gordon of New York, said his client, Rielle Hunter, a pregnant 43-year-old filmmaker, was not carrying Edwards' child. Shortly thereafter, the other lawyer, Pamela J. Marple of Washington, sent word that her client, Andrew Young, an Edwards campaign aide, was the baby's father.