Membership

Healthy food program at Pasadena Lauer's Lauer's Supermarket will be host to the Anne Arundel County Health Department's Learn to Live Program 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at 8095-A Edwin Raynor Blvd., Pasadena. The Good Food for Good Health Weekend offers consumers help in selecting nutritious low-fat, high-fiber foods. Booths staffed by health educators will offer healthy recipes, brochures and magnets. Information: 410-222-7979. Museum's Irish Night The Annapolis Maritime Museum will hold an Irish Night 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. tomorrow at Galway Bay Irish Restaurant and Pub, 63 Maryland Ave., Annapolis.

Ron D. George Membership specialist AAA Mid-Atlantic, Arnold Salary --$35,000 Age --30 Years on the job --One How he got started --George lived in Williamsburg, Va., working at a small airport and helping his mother open a bed and breakfast inn. He then moved to the Annapolis area and began looking for a job. On a whim, he walked into the Arnold office of AAA to ask if they were hiring. Typical day --As a membership specialist, George concentrates on selling and explaining the various benefits associated with the auto club.

Plant sale -- Barbara Jett, Deborah Stevens, Carol Pimental and Cecil Boyd prepare for Historic London Town and Gardens' annual plant sale. The sale will be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at 839 Londontown Road, Edgewater. The free event will include garden tours and children's activities. A members-only preview party will be held from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday; admission is $15 (visitors can apply for membership at the door). 410-222-1919.

Consumers have a plethora of borrowing and saving options, from traditional banks to online-only banks to credit unions and investment brokerages. And while Internet-only banks can offer the most competitive rates for saving and borrowing, credit unions offer a mix of favorable rates and personal service. They're often a good alternative to traditional banks, which still dominate the market. Credit unions are affiliated groups of people who pool their money and lend it to each other. They don't have divided loyalties; they're not trying to serve a customer at the same time as boosting profits and the stock price for shareholders.

Across America, Moose, Elk and Lions are becoming endangered species. The Junior Chamber of Commerce is getting a bit senior. Optimists' numbers look, well, less than optimistic.The ranks of traditional service organizations are thinning at the end of the 1990s -- making it harder for groups that once united main streets to accomplish their missions of community service.The reasons are many.Two-career couples, now commuting from suburbs and exurbs, have less time to commit to organizations, particularly those with lots of meetings.

ARE YOU celebrating the arrival of 2000 in the security of your home, church or other public building?For that, many of us thank the men and women of Station 12: Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Company.Last year, the company responded to more than 4,500 calls for help. Time spent at emergencies and an equal amount, or more, spent servicing and maintaining the specialized equipment add up to thousands of volunteer hours each year.But this comes with a big price tag.Most of the firefighters are volunteers, but the company pays for two staffers -- a driver and a firefighter -- plus equipment, insurance, and protective gear and tools.

William J. Hufnell,CPA, CFP, and owner of Annapolis Financial Services, has been accepted for membership in the National Association of Professional Advisers. Membership is granted only to financial advisers who provide personal financial planning on a comprehensive basis and are paid directly by their clients, without receiving commissions and other rewards for selling financial products.Kimberly Becker Gomoljiak, CPA, has become a stockholder of Design Teams Inc. Based in Annapolis, Design Teams provides administrative management for design firms such as McCrone Inc., which has five offices servicing the mid-Atlantic region.

LARGO, Fla. -- After two weeks of testimony about luxury shopping sprees, hidden love affairs and secret bank accounts, lawyers for the Rev. Henry Lyons open their defense of the embattled Baptist leader today.Lyons, 57, and his alleged mistress, Bernice Edwards, are charged with swindling more than $4 million from corporations that hoped to do business with the National Baptist Convention USA, one of the country's largest African-American denominations.Lyons is president of the group, while Edwards served as its public relations director.

After nearly a year of organizing, an attempt to revive a branch of the NAACP in Carroll County has taken root.Membership for the local chapter exceeds 100, the minimum for establishing a branch of the national civil rights organization, organizers said yesterday."

The first year Tinker Sanger, a Green Spring Valley Hunt Club member, was on the U.S. Girls' Junior committee, she went to Pittsburgh for the 1985 championship at St. Clair Country Club, and noticed a big welcoming banner strung across one of the downtown streets."

I've got a wad of shopping discount cards rubber-banded into a 4-inch brick in my kitchen drawer. It's my secret weapon for intruders; should some unsavory characters surprise me, I'll just rummage in my kitchen drawer and stun them with a shot to the head comprised of incredible savings and elite memberships. I just can't stand carrying these cards around. I don't even like carrying a purse, but I have to because most women's clothes only sport faux pockets that are sewn shut to give your hips a streamlined look.

Neighbors in North Linthicum have gathered at their community pool for more than three decades' worth of summers. Friends barbecued. Children learned to swim. Teenagers got their first jobs as lifeguards. Now, the pool has become another victim of the financial crisis. Faced with years of declining membership and mounting debt - and dim prospects for a loan to ride out the slump - it is unlikely to open for another season. "Every year, the pool makes enough just to squeak by," said Tu Armagost, president of the North Linthicum Recreation Club, which owns and operates the facility.

One Saturday in the near future, amateur golfer Mike Ford will tee it up for the first time this spring. If all goes according to plan, he will arrive at the course early, stretch, take a few practice swings and, when it's his turn, try to smack one down the middle of the fairway. The only difference is this year, for the first time since 1997, Ford won't be doing it at the Hillendale Country Club. Instead, having recently surrendered his membership, he'll be playing at one of the 120-plus Maryland golf courses open to the public.

Healthy food program at Pasadena Lauer's Lauer's Supermarket will be host to the Anne Arundel County Health Department's Learn to Live Program 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at 8095-A Edwin Raynor Blvd., Pasadena. The Good Food for Good Health Weekend offers consumers help in selecting nutritious low-fat, high-fiber foods. Booths staffed by health educators will offer healthy recipes, brochures and magnets. Information: 410-222-7979. Museum's Irish Night The Annapolis Maritime Museum will hold an Irish Night 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. tomorrow at Galway Bay Irish Restaurant and Pub, 63 Maryland Ave., Annapolis.

The Sun's Olympic correspondents, Rick Maese and Kevin Van Valkenburg, are blogging back and forth to each other at baltimoresun.com/olympicsblog. An excerpt: To: Kevin, et al. You might want to check out this link. Match.com, as you might or might not know, is a popular dating site. Not that I know anything about it. (For the record, I am NOT the same rmaese3641b who enjoys Scrubs, Wes Anderson movies, seaweed salad, the Sunday Times crossword puzzle and California Pinot Noir.) Anyhow, where was I?

Amanda Koss has grown accustomed to almost daily phone calls from people seeking a public swimming pool in Harford County. They ask where they can go if they just want to swim outdoors for the day with their family. She tells them Pennsylvania. "At least three or four times a week, more when it's really hot outside, people call me looking for public swimming pools," said Koss, who has managed the private North Harford Swim Club in Jarrettsville the past three years. "I tell them the closest one that I know is Shanbergers Pool in Fawn Grove."

The nation's chief medical association apologized yesterday for decades of past discrimination against African-American physicians, when it effectively denied membership to many black doctors - which many believe has left a legacy of separate and unequal care. The American Medical Association released an article and commentary acknowledging discriminatory practices that, although ended decades ago, still affect medical care. For example, until 1968 it limited membership to doctors who were also members of a state-level affiliate - many of which were segregated.

Marietta English will remain president of the Baltimore Teachers Union after soundly defeating longtime rival Sharon Y. Blake in an election yesterday. English captured about 60 percent of the vote to about 34 percent for Blake, union officials announced. About 1,000 educators cast votes. The union has about 8,000 members, 6,000 of them teachers. "I'm very thankful to the membership for putting their trust in me again for the next two years. We're going to continue to work on their behalf," English said.

OWNER OF NEVINS & ASSOCIATES DAVID NEVINS WHILE WORKING WITH THE BALtimore Symphony Orchestra, David Nevins was encouraged by friends and associates to start his own marketing company. This year, Nevins & Associates celebrates its 25th annniversary. Active in Maryland's educational, civic and business community, Nevins is a member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. Nevins, 53, lives with his two children, Freddi, 16, and Jake, 13, in Pikesville. In his free time, he says, he enjoys playing golf and watching his kids play tennis.

BUCHAREST, Romania -- NATO countries unanimously endorsed Bush administration plans for installing a missile defense system in alliance countries in Europe yesterday even as they rebuffed President Bush's entreaties to extend membership of the alliance to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. The unusually rancorous meeting of NATO members in Bucharest exposed sharp differences between nations, but despite the rancor Bush won some agreement on bolstering the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan and presenting a united front against Russia's objections on the issue of missile defense.