Queenstown

Zourie H.W. Clark, a former Army nurse who turned her military health training into a lifelong calling, died of cancer at her home in Queenstown on Wednesday. The one-time resident of Baltimore and Severna Park was 79. Known to friends as "Dolly," Zourie Wentz was born and raised in East Baltimore before she moved with her family to the Ten Hills section of the city as a teen-ager and graduated from Friends School on Charles Street in 1941. She attended Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Va., but cut her education short at the outbreak of World War II to enlist in the Army, serving as a nurse at Camp Lee, Va. It was to be the beginning of a long affiliation with the craft of care-giving.

Tony Harned, owner of Bob's Mini-Mart and Deli in Queenstown, died of a heart attack Tuesday at Memorial Hospital in Easton. He was 51. The Denton resident was born and reared in Laurel, where he graduated from Arundel High School in 1969. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1973. Mr. Harned began working for Acme Markets when he was 16 years old, joining the Arbutus store full time after graduating from UMCP. In 1982, he was promoted to manager of the company's Denton store, a position he held until 1990, when he purchased Bob's Mini-Mart and Deli in Queenstown.

Anne Arundel police have arrested 24 men at Queenstown Park in Severn on charges of indecent exposure, soliciting and fourth-degree sex offenses, county police said.Officers of the Western District Team Police Unit and vice-narcotics division began staking out the park in mid-October, said Officer Rex Snider, who headed the operation.The investigation was prompted by citizen complaints of lewd activity in Queenstown Park, which abuts the larger Friendship Park. In early October, Snider began noting license plate numbers of cars that frequented the park.

QUEENSTOWN -- A proposal to double the size of Chesapeake Village Outlet Center, spreading it to both sides of U.S. 50 at Queenstown, has raised troubling questions about traffic on the main route to Ocean City, and the wisdom of further commercial development in a congested and heavily traveled area. The outlet center expansion has become a lightning-rod issue, provoking a wider discussion of future land use and how to keep the area from sprawling into a strip-mall eyesore.Opponents of the plan, which has not been formally presented to the town commission, say they are concerned about increased traffic at an already treacherous stretch of highway, the wisdom of commercial development at the headwaters of the Wye River and whether such development will ultimately benefit Queenstown and the surrounding area.

The man thought it was a beautiful day in Queenstown Park Friday until police put handcuffs on him shortly after noon.The Laurel resident was charged with soliciting to perform a sex act on a police officer. He was taken to Harbour Hospital after he complained of chest pains.His arrest was among the first in a police crackdown on men who have sex with other men in Queenstown Park. The park on Queenstown Road in Severn has been the target of undercover operations before, but this time officers say they hope to keep the men away by banning those they arrest from all county parks.

While most of her friends are working or relaxing at the beach this summer, 17-year-old Christina Rhynalds will be sitting in a classroom -- in Japan.The Severn School junior is to leave tomorrow for Yokohama, where she will spend six weeks as a student at a Japanese high school and learn about the Japanese way of life."I'm really happy I get to go," Rhynalds said. "It'll be interesting."Rhynalds is the recipient of a Japan-U.S. Senate scholarship awarded by the Youth For Understanding International Exchange.

QUEENSTOWN -- The Mideast peace talks here are the biggest thing to hit town since the day back in 1918 when townsfolk celebrated the end of World War I by loading an effigy of Kaiser Wilhelm aboard a horse-drawn hearse for a parade through the village -- and the horses bolted.They galloped the length of Main Street, upsetting decorations, ruining the parade and delighting every small boy there, among them Harry C. Rhodes, who was 4 at the time and today is the living expert on Queenstown's history.

QUEENSTOWN -- A round of Middle East peace talks on the Eastern Shore recessed yesterday on an encouraging note, with U.S. officials citing evidence that Syria is moving to restrain terrorist groups that have traditionally relied on its support.Damascus has told two groups -- Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Islamic terrorist group operating in Lebanon, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command -- "to cease and desist and not count on [Syrian] support at this time," a senior U.S. official said.

A 20-year-old Harford County man was killed and his 18-year-old sister was seriously injured Friday night in a head-on collision on U.S. 50 near Queenstown in Queen Anne's County.Police said William H. Hubbard, Jr., 20, of Gilmer Court in Belcamp died in the 10:20 p.m., three-vehicle accident near Route 404.State police said a Ford pickup truck driven by James Whitefield, 50, of Odenton in Anne Arundel County was traveling west on U.S. 50 when it rear-ended an Isuzu truck driven by Marc Edmond of Ocean City.

An article in yesterday's editions about the genetics and crime conference in Queenstown inaccurately described a study cited by Dr. Irving Gottesman of the University of Virginia. The study, conducted by researchers in Minnesota, showed that identical twins reared apart tended to have similar scores in tests for anti-social personality disorder.The Sun regrets the error.