Improvement Association

A secluded pocket of green hills and trees just outside of the northern boundary line of Baltimore, Ruxton is a conveniently located and surprisingly rural neighborhood. Once an industrially driven town that supported Bellona Powder Supply -- which provided 20 percent of the country's gunpowder during the War of 1812, according to the Ruxton-Riderwood-Lake Roland Area Improvement Association -- the area is now almost entirely residential. Ruxton, a neighborhood rooted in tradition, is a wholesome place to raise a family, said Fran Anderson, the association's president.

City expands Healthy Neighborhoods program Baltimore officials yesterday announced a significant expansion of the Healthy Neighborhoods initiative, a Baltimore program that provides low-interest loans for residents in certain neighborhoods to purchase or renovate homes. "Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods, and Healthy Neighborhoods ensures that these communities receive the resources necessary to thrive," said City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake. Until recently, residents in 10 city neighborhoods were eligible for the program.

Charles E. McKeldin, a retired pharmaceutical salesman and woodcarver, died of complications from diabetes Aug. 30 at Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. The former longtime Northeast Baltimore resident was 89. Mr. McKeldin, a nephew of the former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin, was born in the city and raised on Cleveland and Carroll streets. During World War II, he worked as a riveter and machinist at Bethlehem Steel's Fairfield shipyard building Liberty ships while attending night classes at Polytechnic Institute.

A Severna Park community association has apparently thwarted a couple's efforts to build a bridge and pier - the equivalent length of two football fields - from their home onto the Severn River. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Philip T. Caroom ruled this month that Paul and Joan Gunby do not have the legal right to build onto Sullivan Cove from their house on 2.2 acres along the river. The couple had received a license from the Maryland Department of the Environment. In rejecting the couple's bid, Caroom sided with the Olde Severna Park Improvement Association, which said it was given control of the water rights around the cove in the 1920s as part of the original development plan.

Community leaders in Baltimore County are strongly criticizing a proposal by the Community College of Baltimore County to lease land on its Essex campus to a private developer for a senior housing complex, and a college official said widespread resistance to the idea may hurt its chances for approval. In letters, officials with several community associations and at least one county councilman have expressed concerns about the proposal. And the attentions of CCBC's board of trustees will soon have to turn toward the search for a replacement for Chancellor Irving Pressley McPhail, who announced this week that he plans to leave his job in June, said Francis X. Kelly, a former state senator who chairs the trustee board.

A protracted fight over a proposed landfill in western Anne Arundel County remains hotly contested, despite efforts by the Silver Spring-based Halle Cos. to push the deal through. Representatives for the Greater Crofton Council and the Greater Odenton Improvement Association have opposed the landfill for about 15 years, but they told those who packed the Crofton group's monthly meeting Tuesday night that they see it as inevitable - and hope to get something from Halle in exchange. "There's no way to stop the landfill," said Greater Crofton Council President Torrey Jacobsen before more than 120 people.

Jim Rose gave a tree tour as he walked the perimeter of Harwood Neighborhood Park in Elkridge. On the blackgum: "A woodland tree in Maryland that grows all over the place." On the silver maple: "Not a great tree, it grows too fast and drops limbs." The park is the site of Rose's "arboretum without walls," a project that he developed to identify and describe trees. He figures that if people know more about their environment, they'll take more of an interest in what happens to it. "We take existing trees and put tags and labels on them, so people walking in the park can begin to become more aware of what kinds of trees are there," said the retired computer scientist, who's designed four other arboretums at county parks.

Located 20 miles north of downtown Baltimore, Perry Hall is a growing suburb where new homes keep springing up next to cornfields and former farms. The area's proximity to the city has drawn many homebuyers to Perry Hall, where more than 20,000 homes now cover what once was farmland. Roads and schools have become crowded during the past 20 years, some residents said, as more people move to the area. "I had grown up in a rural area, and I couldn't imagine living in a rowhouse," said Chris Jackovitz, who moved to Forge Road in Perry Hall 46 years ago and has watched the area grow rapidly.

For one week each summer, the folks in Glen Burnie turn a drab parking lot into a frenzied, candy-colored party. Children shriek as they spin and rock on rides with names like "Samurai." Teen-agers flirt while devouring pit beef sandwiches and 75-cent hot dogs. Grandmothers play bingo. And the more than 1,000 volunteers manning the penny tosses and raffle games wear smiles that look as if they've been glued on, even as their feet ache from hours of standing. It's The Big Glen Burnie Carnival, and for nearly 100 years, it's been the main revenue source for the Glen Burnie Improvement Association.