Lark

A gastronomic journey at the Center Club's Fifth Annual Casino Gala raised $20,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Summer Camp Campaign.Some 208 guests began their "Evening on the Riviera" by diving into Mediterranean seafood antipasto spread in one room and continuing on their epicurean excursion with sushi, pasta, carved beef and dessert stations set out in others.As if that wasn't enough, at midnight, breakfast was served.Getting their fill at this food fest: event co-chairs Dr. Mark J. Gloth and Theresa G. Giardina; Calvin Hargett Jr., president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association Maryland-Southern Delaware Executive Committee; Annie Kennedy and Katie McGuire, camp co-directors; Michele Dressman, camp nurse; Julie Mercer, Young Members' Committee chair; Lark Pfleegor, designer with Patrick Sutton Associates; Al Reid, president of Rapid Response Inc.; and Jack Marks, president of John Marks Associates Advertising.

Editor's note: This retelling of an Australian folktale focuses on a singing contest among the animals.Long ago, on a great island in the middle of the ocean, there lived a collection of creatures found nowhere else in the world. They all chattered at once, and their voices were harsh and loud. The island was the noisiest place you could imagine.Tired of the raucous sounds, Old Man said he would make a musical instrument in honor of the creature who developed the most beautiful singing voice.

Even classical music aficionados hear Peter Schickele's name and automatically think of a hilariously clever comedian responsible for unleashing the music of the infamous P.D.Q. Bach on an unsuspecting world.But while the world's funniest musicologist has won fame via laughter in P.D.Q.'s immortal works such as "Iphigenia in Brooklyn," the "Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons," and the semi-lovely "Shleptet in E-flat," most of his music is no laughing matter.Indeed, Schickele is a serious composer as a Candlelight Concert audience will find out Saturday evening at 8 when the composer takes the Smith Theatre stage to perform with the Lark String Quartet.

You read the dinosaur books. You lined up with the kids for the dinosaur movies, and you've tripped over their dinosaur toys.Now, in case someone in your family still hasn't had enough, dinosaurs are back from the dead again, and they're camped on the second floor of the Maryland Science Center.Don Lessem's $2 million exhibit, "The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and The Lost World," opens Saturday and runs through Feb. 1. And Science Center officials are bracing for a blockbuster."Dino" Don's traveling show features huge dino reconstructions and skeletons; informative, interactive displays; a multi-sensory "Extinction Theater" that evokes several scenarios for the dinos' last days; and a simulated fossil pit where visitors can excavate their own dinosaur bones.

Burnett King,77, who protested racial segregation at a movie house in 1944, starting a case that ended in the integration of Pittsburgh-area theaters, died of cancer Thursday in Pittsburgh.Russell Lark Brown,66, a Baltimore native and professional clown, died Thursday of a heart attack at home in Brooklyn, N.Y. He performed as the clown "Russell B" most recently for UniverSoul Circus, the nation's only black-owned circus.Pub Date: 6/30/98

If Tanya Fermin hadn't been stood up and Brandon Jones hadn't taken a job that left him no time to meet women, both might still be single, wondering if their prince (or princess) was ever going to come.Back in February 1996, Brandon, a customer-service representative for Zurich Personal Insurance in Timonium, was working an 11 a.m.-to-8 p.m. schedule that often went into overtime. "Most of the people I work with are either married or far beyond my age," he says. So there was no hope his job would lead him to the woman of his dreams.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes in Howard County.Ellicott City: 3300 block of Oak West Drive: A man was robbed Wednesday when a group of young men walked in front of his car and forced him to stop. Police said the men surrounded the car and began shaking it. The driver offered them cash. The men took that money, reached into the driver's pockets, took more cash and fled on foot. No one was injured.Owen Brown: 8900 block of Lark Brown Road: Someone tried to break into a house Tuesday by breaking a rear side window.

The mere mention of it brought laughter from my children and a quizzical look from my wife. A neighbor agreed to go along, but he, too, was skeptical."

* Kings Contrivance: 8800 block of Stonebrook Lane: Someone tried to steal a 1982 GMC truck about 3 a.m. Tuesday, but fled when the owner approached him. Police arrested a 17-year-old Columbia youth and charged him with attempted theft.* Long Reach: 5400 block of Luckpenny Place: Four tires valued at $250 each were stolen from a 1991 Volkswagen Jetta between 2 and 10:45 a.m. Monday.10100 block of Shaker Drive: A green bank bag with $1,447.86 in cash and checks was stolen from the Kings Contrivance Restaurant between noon Saturday and noon Sunday.

The aisles of Bass Expo at the Cow Palace in Timonium Friday afternoon were filled with fishermen testing the latest and best in tackle, related equipment and boats. At the back of the building on the state fairgrounds, Jim Lark was testing the waters to see how well his own idea would float.Lark is president of a fledgling nonprofit organization named Fun Fishing Without Barriers, Inc. And amid the fishing pros, rows of vendors and the crowds of recreational fishermen, his group's project is unusual -- to provide recreational pond fishing for the physically disabled.