Jaycees

The Greater Glen Burnie Jaycees will convene their monthly membership meeting at 7:30 tonight on the second floor the Glen Burnie YMCA, Central Avenue, Glen Burnie.The meeting will feature impromptu "speak ups," as part of the Jaycees' Speak Up Program, designed to improve members' speaking skills. Judging takes place at each state quarterly board meeting. The winner will be sent to the Jaycees' national convention to be judged again on a different speech.* The Glen Burnie Jaycees will be assisting the Towson JayceesChapter in their Oct. 25th and 30th Haunted House fund-raising event.

Julia Seeley, 10, burst into the bustling kitchen in a church hall shortly before 5 p.m. and shouted, "There's buses here!" The first guests began arriving nearly an hour early for a traditional Thanksgiving feast that was still in the making, Although they were preparing about 200 meals, organizers of the 31st annual Greater Towson Jaycees dinner for seniors remained unruffled and on task. They mixed stuffing with herbs and broth and tended steaming caldrons brimming with sweet potatoes, green vegetables and sauerkraut, relying on the dining room help to tend to the guests.

The Annapolis Jaycees have elected the following members for the 1991-1992 year:Patricia Baldwin, president; Dana Tropp, chapter management vice president; Mary Keating, community development vice president; Kelly Skubi, membership development vice president; Anne Davis,individual development vice president; Marc Haraway, state director;Colleen Baldwin, secretary; Chris Nicholas, treasurer; Robert Jett III, legal counsel; Mark Lechowicz, chairman of the...

W. Riley "Skip" Whorton, a semiretired financial planner and life insurance agent, died Aug. 27 of leukemia at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Timonium resident was 68. Mr. Whorton was born on Long Island, N.Y., and then moved with his family to Whortonsville, N.C., where his father worked in the family seafood business. In 1950, he moved to Ellicott City when his father and uncle moved the business to the old Wholesale Fish Market on Market Place in downtown Baltimore.

When Bob Kuntz looks at the newly finished B & A Trail, he sees the end of year's of hard work. A former Severna Park Jaycees president, he credits the idea for the recreational trail to fellow Jaycee, Jim Hague.Hague, he says, proposed a linear hiking park in 1972. What better way to use the abandoned Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad lines that cut a swath through Severna Park to Annapolis, he reasoned.Later, Kuntz recalls, the Jaycees spent weekends straining on a home-made machine, built from two lawn mowers, mounted on the abandoned rails.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer has proclaimed today through Saturday as Jaycee Week, commending the Broadneck Peninsula Jaycees for contributing to the community's well-being, said Pamela A. Hull, publicity relations director for the Broadneck Jaycees.They have been involved in projects such as CPR training, Homelessness Assistance, "Just say No" clubs and various community fund-raisers. The governor urged peninsula citizens to take note of the chapter's contributions and support future chapter efforts.

The Annapolis Jaycees Chesapeake Bay Classic bike race scheduled fortomorrow and Sunday has been canceled because of a lack of money.The road race was to be conducted in the Eastern Shore town of Centreville on Saturday, with a criterium race to begin at the Navy/MarineCorps Stadium on Rowe Boulevard in Annapolis.Organizers had expected more than 700 riders from 20 states to compete for more than $7,500 in cash and prizes.But registration chairman Dana Tropp, vice president of the Jaycees, said: "There would have been about 400 people, and we needed about 500 people to break even.

SEVERNA PARK Jaycees is helping to bring the spirit of Christmas to our neighborhoods with its annual sale of luminaria kits.The glowing luminaria candles, each in a small white bag, are placed along walks, driveways or streets, copying an age-old Spanish tradition that symbolizes the bonfires lighted by shepherds to illuminate the way to Bethlehem.The flickering lights have in recent years become a tradition in central county, lighting the way for party guests, carolers and, sometimes, Santa Claus.

A small Brooklyn Park Jaycees chapter has disbanded, but a controversy about money its members raised for a dying girl hasn't subsided.The Brooklyn Park group was a small, struggling chapter of the nationwide service organization. Meetings were held in a local bar, and one former member said, "Most people joined for the softball team."Then in May 1990 the members adopted the cause of Samantha Battaglia, a 5-year-old girl dying of a rare genetic disease that prevents her bones from growing.

From: Linda Wheeler SparksSeverna Park JayceesLocal Jaycee chapters celebrate the 70-year history of the U.S. Jaycees organization the week of Jan. 20 to 26.The U.S. Jaycees group was founded by Henry Gissenbier of St. Louis in 1910 as a dance club to preserve traditional dances. By 1915, the organization began thinking about civic responsibilities, changing the group into what ithas become today. In 1985, the Jaycees included the membership of women, and in 1990, the U.S. Jaycees acknowledged the name of U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce, along with the Jaycees.

The case of Jaycee Dugard and her two daughters is terrifying, but we need to keep things in perspective. What happened to Ms. Dugard is so shocking, in part, because it is so rare. The case is certainly horrifying on multiple levels: that any child could be snatched off the street, be sexually abused and then become emotionally attached to someone like Phillip Garrido; that the victim would give birth to his children; that Mr. Garrido's wife would be complicit in some manner; that Ms. Dugard and her children did not escape; that children were raised with little contact with the social, educational and medical worlds; that authorities and neighbors missed earlier opportunities to blow the whistle; that a convicted sex offender was in the neighborhood; that Mr. Garrido's father said he was mentally unstable and did not intervene; and so on. However, according to a 1999 National Incidence Study that looked at all categories of missing children, the odds are roughly one in a million that a child will experience what the authors of the study call a "stereotypical kidnapping" - a small subset of nonfamily abductions where he or she is kept in hiding for a lengthy period of time and possibly killed.

For kidnap victims such as Jaycee Lee Dugard, recovery is rare. A full portion of her life - her entire teens and 20s - was poisoned by her abduction at age 11 and the 18 years of brutal captivity and deprivation that followed. Even psychologists and psychiatrists skilled at confronting the worst of human nature find it hard to fathom how Dugard can put the pieces back together and live some semblance of a normal existence. Things could well be worse for Dugard's two daughters, who were born into captivity in a ramshackle Antioch, Calif.

On December 9, 2008, JAYCEE former employee of Potts & Callahan; beloved husband of Gladys Gardner; devoted father of Michael and Anthony Gardner and Kenneth Scarboro. Also survived by four grandchildren, other relatives and friends. Friends may call at THE CHATMAN-HARRIS FUNERAL HOME, 5240 Reisterstown Road, Friday 2 to 8 P.M. The family will receive friends at Har Sinai Church of Christ, 300 S. Broadway, Saturday 10:30 A.M. Funeral service will begin 11 A.M. Interment Woodlawn Cemetery.

Shopping centers in Anne Arundel County have been festooned with holiday decorations and sale signs for weeks, but for Annapolitans, the holiday season doesn't officially begin until tonight's Grand Illumination. The traditional lighting of the holiday tree, sponsored by the Annapolis Jaycees and Homestead Gardens, begins at 6 p.m. with live music, followed by the lighting at 7 p.m. Several local groups will perform, including the Talent Machine, St. Mary's Noel choir and the Sweet Adelines.

Frank W. Welsh, a one-time aide to former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley who went on to serve as director of the Baltimore County Department of Community Development, died Saturday of kidney failure at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 76. Mr. Welsh was born in Baltimore and raised in Govans. He was a 1950 graduate of City College, where he had been drum major in the school's marching band. An accomplished musician, Mr. Welsh played the clarinet and saxophone. "He also formed an 11-piece swing band - Frank Welsh's Orchestra - and played at dances around Baltimore in the 1950s," said his wife of 48 years, the former Regina Holter.

Barbara Keith joined the Mount Airy Jaycees six years ago, and in only a year she became president of the group. She threw herself into planning social events to go along with the organization's traditional activities: the spring and fall yard sales, the Thanksgiving baskets, the Christmas party for underprivileged children, the Easter egg hunt. But a dwindling membership is prompting the chapter - Carroll County's last - to disband. "We wanted to close ourselves down," Keith said, explaining the decision earlier this summer.

The Odenton Jaycees thank everyone who contributed to the food drive.Last Saturday, the Jaycees delivered a pickup truck full of food to the First Evangelical Lutheran Church to help needy families. Now that's what you call Christmas spirit!The Jaycees are selling tickets to the Jan. 14 hockey game between the Washington Capitals and the New Jersey Devils at USAir Arena.Tickets, which usually sell for $32, are available for $20. Proceeds will benefit the Friends of Literacy Program. For tickets or information, call 551-4439 or 621-9508.