Pager

At the Countryside Mall in Clearwater, Fla., parents cruise the stores as their children nap or play games at the Jabbawokki child-care center. What happens if one child bites another, complains of a stomach ache or begins to sob inconsolably?Scott Kaufman, who heads the center (yes, its name differs from the "Jabberwocky" of Lewis Carroll), can instantly dial the number of the hand-held pager that the parents are given as part of the child-care service. Hearing the beep, mom or dad knows to scurry back.

Four people were arrested Thursday night, including an alleged drug supplier who had come back to pick up his pager when Anne Arundel County police raided a Glen Burnie home.Police said the home, in the 100 block of Fifth Ave. S.W., was filled with the smell of phencyclidine hydrochloride (PCP) at the time of the 11:30 p.m. raid. Authorities found one-half ounce of liquid PCP and a cigarette dipped in liquid PCP.Two residents of the apartment, Stephen Teal, 28, and Melissa Teal, 28, told police a man named "Stanley" had just delivered drugs there.

Both Anne Siejack and her 17-year-old daughter, Jacque, are busy people. So when they need to get in touch with each other, they reach for the phone -- and beep each other.Pagers, while at times seen as symbols of the youth drug culture, have moved into the mainstream and are becoming the latest trend in teen telecommunications."Me being a teen-ager, I go out a lot and my mom works a lot," said Jacque, a senior at Dulaney High School. "My mom got it for me so she knows where I am."For Anne Siejack, who owns a bar and package goods store, having her daughter carry a pager provides a little more peace of mind.

The former manager of a financially troubled Columbia telecommunications company is suing the firm for $10 million, claiming it maliciously charged him with taking equipment and records.Jeffrey Cunningham of Finksburg filed the suit against American Beeper Associates on Oct. 30 in Howard County Circuit Court.Also named in the suit are four officers of the firm, which does business as Page Plus Corp., and the company's general partner, Pager Communication Corp. of Crofton.American Beeper, which is owned by U.S. Rep. Tom McMillen and 27 others, and Pager Communication filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy papers Sept.

A small California start-up company, EO Inc., has unveiled the first "personal communicator," a hand-held device that combines the capabilities of a pager, phone, fax, computer and electronic organizer.The device, to be available in the second quarter of next year, will be priced from $1,999 to $3,299, depending on options.In addition to AT&T, EO is backed by two Japanese companies, Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp., which makes Panasonic products, and Marubeni Corp., a Japanese trading company.

A firm named after Maryland Congressman Tom McMillen and largely owned by him quietly changed its name last month just before filing for bankruptcy.The company, which leases and sells paging devices, had been called McMillen Communications Corp. since it was founded by Mr. McMillen in 1981. It changed its name to Pager Communication Corp. on Sept. 18. The same day, Pager Communication filed for bankruptcy in a federal court in Virginia.Several disgruntled investors have charged that the unannounced and last-minute name change was designed to shield Mr. McMillen, who is running for re-election, from the potential political embarrassment of being closely associated with a failing business.

Maryland Congressman Tom McMillen stands to lose close to a million dollars in personal investments if a troubled telecommunications business that grew out of the small paging firm he founded does not survive a bankruptcy reorganization attempt.Officers of American Beeper Associates, also known as Page Plus Regional Messaging Network, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy papers on Sept. 18 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Alexandria, Va.On the same day in a related case, similar bankruptcy papers were filed for Pager Communications Corp.

Mercedes thief eludes police in pursuitA man who stole a Mercedes from downtown Annapolis led police on a brief chase through the Clay Street neighborhood Tuesday afternoon before escaping into woods, city police said.A police officer was responding to a disturbance call on Clay Street shortly after noon when the driver of the Mercedes noticed the flashing lights and took off, police said. The officer chased him across Glenwood Street to the Adams Park Learning Center, where he escaped into the woods.

Two county narcotics officers spent months trying to worm their way into the good graces of suspected drug dealers in Arnold so they could buy drugs to get evidence to make arrests.Two weeks ago, they began buying drugs, the officers said at a news conference Friday morning. Wednesday night, they arrested four men. By Thursday afternoon, the suspects were on the street.David Sade, 25, who allegedly ran the ring out of his house in 100 block of Shore Road for more than a year, was released on $1,500 bond.

Just across the canal from an old cow pasture in Boynton Beach, Fla., one of the country's most successful factories is proving that Americans still know how to build a product and bully the world with it.Motorola Inc. has turned Boynton Beach into the world's wellspring for electronic pagers. This plant first turned out pagers in 1984; these days, the plant hums around the clock, manufacturing more than 11,000 a day.The success of Motorola's Paging and Telepoint Systems Group flies in the face of the belief that U.S. manufacturing is in its twilight.