Nature Trail

Spring Garden Elementary School will dedicate its new nature trail and study area at 3 p.m. Sunday at the school in Hampstead.Students and staff completed the trail with help from students at North Carroll High School. The two-year project began when the Spring Garden school improvement team asked Assistant Principal Jackie Powell to start a committee to turn an unused county field and woods into a nature trail for the elementary school.The trail will be dedicated to the memory of Ashley Elizabeth Frazier, who was a fourth-grader at the school when she died in an accident in 1995.

The Cromwell Valley Park Council has begun development of the "Nature Trail for All," a scenic and educational trail that will be accessible to people of varying physical and intellectual limitations. "There are very few places where someone with limited mobility can be around nature," said Alan Lake, chair of the buildings and grounds committee for the park council. "Right now, the park is a series of hills. There are 16 miles of trails, but little of it is accessible to people with various limitations," he said.

Jennifer Shaver, 13, pulled up stubborn roots all morning. But on this try, she couldn't yank free the subterranean matter, although she twisted it and knelt and pulled with all her might.Eric Layson noticed his eighth-grade classmate's unsuccessful efforts. With a large pick he struck the dirt several times, loosened the root and pulled it from the ground.The pair were among 30 Mayfield Woods Middle School students who uprooted roots and dug soil Friday to create a nature trail near their school in Elkridge.

John Smith explored the Patapsco River here in his search for a passageway to the Pacific Ocean. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad passed through here. Blacks fought against slavery and segregation here, and community members fought here against plans to run a highway through the trees and brush. All of these events happened on soil that is now part of the Gwynns Falls Trail, which winds along Gwynns Falls and up the Patapsco. At 15 miles, it is one of the nation's largest urban nature trails.

Earth Day celebrants at Carroll Community College last weekend had to imagine a nature trail as they hiked through a field, woods and crossed a stream.But before Earth Day 1998, they'll be able to see the trail.A committee has been working since 1993 to build a hiking, jogging and nature appreciation trail that will run from the Carroll County YMCA south of Westminster north to Westminster High School. The committee includes representatives from the community college, Robert Moton Elementary School, the YMCA and county government.

The Greater Baltimore Medical Center's nature trail, which took a beating last year from Tropical Storm Isabel, has been renovated. The hospital will hold a dedication ceremony at 3 p.m. today to mark the opening of the improved, mile-long trail on GBMC's campus. The renovation culminates more than a year's planning and construction, which restored the trail after its destruction by Isabel last year. Doug Smith, president of the GBMC Foundation, received a call last year from Cindy Crawley, president of the GBMC Women's Hospital Board, about repairing the trail, which Crawley and her husband, William, a GBMC plastic surgeon, enjoyed with their dogs.

The Cromwell Valley Park Council has begun development of the "Nature Trail for All," a scenic and educational trail that will be accessible to people of varying physical and intellectual limitations. "There are very few places where someone with limited mobility can be around nature," said Alan Lake, chair of the buildings and grounds committee for the park council. "Right now, the park is a series of hills. There are 16 miles of trails, but little of it is accessible to people with various limitations," he said.

When Mark Frazer was elected mayor of the Southern Maryland town of North Beach two years ago, he could see the glitter beneath the grit. The once-rollicking family resort of the 1920s and 1930s - later a destination for gamblers - seemed to be on its way back from an extended period of decline. The rebuilt pier and new beachfront condominiums overlooking the Chesapeake Bay set the tone for renewal, and Frazer has continued the momentum. He built a welcome center on the boardwalk, established a beach patrol and began streetscape improvements.

ONE OF THE fascinating trends of recent years has been the boom in greenways. Several already exist in the Baltimore region, and other nature trails are planned to accommodate a growing number of hikers and bikers.Now comes word that the 13.3-mile Baltimore and Annapolis Trail, which runs from Glen Burnie to Severn, has been selected as one of the first designated sections of the East Coast Greenway network.Running parallel to Ritchie Highway on the bed of the old Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad tracks, this trail will be among paths recommended for use by those who want to traverse from Maine to Florida -- or points in-between -- using a 2,500-mile stretch of recreational paths.

The Spring Garden Elementary School PTA will have a retirement open house for Principal Larry Bair from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at 700 Boxwood Drive, Hampstead.Light refreshments will be available and the public is invited.At 3 p.m., the school's nature trail and study area will be dedicated.The school improvement committee has spent two years converting an unused county field and woods into an instructional area for students.The project will be dedicated to Ashley Elizabeth Frazier, a Spring Garden fourth-grader who died after being struck by a car in December 1995, and to all Spring Garden students.

The Greater Baltimore Medical Center's nature trail, which took a beating last year from Tropical Storm Isabel, has been renovated. The hospital will hold a dedication ceremony at 3 p.m. today to mark the opening of the improved, mile-long trail on GBMC's campus. The renovation culminates more than a year's planning and construction, which restored the trail after its destruction by Isabel last year. Doug Smith, president of the GBMC Foundation, received a call last year from Cindy Crawley, president of the GBMC Women's Hospital Board, about repairing the trail, which Crawley and her husband, William, a GBMC plastic surgeon, enjoyed with their dogs.

Move forward with best plan for Purple Line While the debate over the Purple Line north of Washington can be given something of a "class warfare" aspect, the real focus should be on the relative merits of the inner vs. the outer Purple Line proposals ("Plan to extend Washington's Metro tees off golfers and users of trail," Dec. 3). With transit and other budgets tightening, Maryland can ill afford to embrace the $5 billion-plus proposed outer Purple Line to avoid moving two holes of a golf course.

From the outside, the Chesapeake Children's Museum is an unassuming brown building tucked away on Silopanna Road in Annapolis. But once inside, visitors are greeted by walls painted to look like the sky, a dinosaur mural and a wooden tugboat, big enough to climb, with its own pier. Now 10 years old, the nonprofit museum has found a permanent home after being housed in elementary schools and shopping centers. "People were disappointed when it had to move," said Roy Wood, whose wife, Deborah Wood, is the founder and president of the museum.

EVERY TIME I turn around these days, it seems someone is preserving trees -- as in "We're going to preserve what's left after we clear-cut all we need for our development." It's why, for all our tree laws, tree plantings and forest protection zones, we're still losing trees by the thousands of acres a year across Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay region. The latest reminder was Loyola College's "Fields of Dreams" project, which seems greased by the mayor and City Council to rip the green heart out of Baltimore's Woodberry neighborhood.

A stiff breeze flattens the wildflower meadow at Adkins Arboretum in Caroline County and whistles past my ears. But as arboretum director Ellie Altman and I enter the woods, everything seems hushed. In the cloistered interior, the tall oaks and sweet gums creak and shush as they sway overhead in the wind, and I can hear the twitch of animals through the rattlesnake fern. The arboretum, 400 acres of meadow and woods that meander along the Tuckahoe River, is filled with native wildflowers -- skunk cabbage, trout lily, bloodroot and love-lies-bleeding.

When Mark Frazer was elected mayor of the Southern Maryland town of North Beach two years ago, he could see the glitter beneath the grit. The once-rollicking family resort of the 1920s and 1930s - later a destination for gamblers - seemed to be on its way back from an extended period of decline. The rebuilt pier and new beachfront condominiums overlooking the Chesapeake Bay set the tone for renewal, and Frazer has continued the momentum. He built a welcome center on the boardwalk, established a beach patrol and began streetscape improvements.

You could say that Beth Sullivan was working on a small legacy as she dug a hole yesterday morning to plant a tree behind Mechanicsville Elementary School.The 11-year-old fifth-grader from Finksburg will have moved on to middle school when Mechanicsville students -- who have been in temporary quarters while their school is renovated -- return next fall.She said she considered herself lucky to represent the fifth grade in the group of about 20 children and adults who planted trees and shrubs along a path behind the school.

Maud J. Broyles, 89, professor, naturalist Maud Jefferson Broyles, a retired Towson University education professor, died July 5 of complications of osteoporosis at Broadmead. She was 89 and had lived at the Cockeysville retirement community since 1991. Miss Broyles joined the Towson faculty in 1960. She specialized in curriculum and supervision and worked closely with teachers and student-teachers in the Baltimore City and Baltimore County public schools. Born in Wikel, W.Va., Miss Broyles was raised in Beckley, W.Va.