Naval Academy

The snide comments surprised Randy Kurtz, who figured she was suffering the same harrowing rites of passage as her U.S. Naval Academy classmates as they trudged through the plebe summer of 1978. "You don't belong here," the male midshipmen might say. A few seemed to take particular glee in pulling her down as she attempted the Herndon Climb, which culminates plebe year. Kurtz, a Connecticut native, was part of the third academy class to include women, and the spirit of equality had not sunk in with everyone.

A 26-year-old Naval Academy graduate from Howard County who realized a long-held dream of becoming a Naval aviator was killed when the jet she was piloting crashed into a field outside Spokane, Wash. Lt. j.g. Valerie Cappelaere Delaney and her two crew members died Monday morning when the EA-6B Prowler crashed during training, the Navy said Tuesday. The incident remains under investigation. Friends and family described Cappelaere Delaney as a focused, athletic and caring young woman whose career was shaped by conversations with her grandfather, a retired Air Force pilot.

We call games like Navy's 16-14 loss to Army last Saturday "heartbreakers." After an exhilarating fourth-quarter comeback, the game comes down to a fresh-faced plebe and the climactic field goal he has always dreamed of kicking. Eighteen yards from victory and . . . he misses.The coach's face crumples. The kicker must be consoled. A devastating loss. A heartbreaker.But we use the word too carelessly. Today, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis only wishes it were grieving over a football loss.

Nearly 100 people have reported symptoms of viral gastroenteritis after a weekend swim meet at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, state health officials said. Several athletes got sick on the pool deck during the finals session of the Maryland State Swimming Championships on Saturday, according to a letter on the Maryland Swimming website. Of the 99 people who reported illnesses to Maryland Swimming after the weekend's events, 89 were swimmers, about seven or eight others were officials or coaches on the pool deck and others were parents or spectators, said Raymond Brown, the organization' s general chair.

Robert C. Bandy, a 1990 graduate of North East High School in Cecil County, has been appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy.He follows in the footsteps of his father, Ret. Cmdr. Robert F. Bandy, also of North East, a 1966 graduate of the academy.The younger Bandy attended Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., for a year after graduation.

As he took the helm of the Naval Academy on Tuesday, Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller told a crowd that his tenure at the military college would be marked by a mission to provide leaders who have strong ethics for the Navy fleet. Midshipmen must learn to engender trust in order to lead effectively, he said. "I believe honor is at the core of building that trust. I'm convinced that an ethical foundation will come first, and that will be our starting point while I am here," he said.

Cmdr. Bill Spann, the public voice of the Naval Academy for the past three years, is leaving the military college tomorrow and retiring from the Navy. His successor as the school's public affairs officer and chief spokesman will be Cmdr. Rod J. Gibbons, 39, a 1986 graduate who last served as deputy director of public affairs for the U.S. Northern Command, at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. At Annapolis, Gibbons will oversee a 20-person office that deals with the news media, coordinates VIP visits and community-outreach programs, and puts out the school's newspaper, The Trident, and other internal publications.

Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt announced yesterday the appointment of Navy Capt. Charles J. Leidig Jr. as the 80th commandant of midshipmen, a title equivalent to dean of students at a civilian university. The appointment will be effective Sept. 17. Leidig, who will be responsible for the day-to-day activities of 4,000 midshipmen, succeeds Marine Col. John R. Allen, who has been promoted to brigadier general. Allen's next assignment has not been announced. Leidig, a Baltimore native and a career submarine officer, has been the academy's deputy commandant of midshipmen since June.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the United States Naval Academy. It was established in 1845 at what was then the Army's Fort Severn. Today, the Navy and Marine Corps officer training school -- and one of the country's top undergraduate institutions -- now covers more than 300 acres south of the Severn River, much of it land reclaimed from the water.The physical size of the Naval Academy alone may intimidate some visitors. Not to worry. Guided tours of the grounds are available for those who do not want to do sightseeing on their own. And this month, a much-needed new visitors center was inaugurated.

ANNAPOLIS -- A bomb threat yesterday forced the Naval Academy to evacuate four buildings, postpone classes and move a speech by the Navy's top officer as part of a conference.The threat came in a fax at about 9: 30 a.m. to the Joint Spectrum Center at the Naval Station Annapolis, which is located across the Severn River from the Naval Academy.Marine guards with M-16 machine guns and body armor secured the area around the four buildings mentioned in the threat: Bancroft Hall, Nimitz Library, Rickover Hall and Alumni Hall.