Riding Center

"It took about three days for it to sink it," said Dr. Helen Tuel, director of the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center of Glenwood. "I didn't realize how much work 24 young people could do in one day."Dr. Tuel referred to the team of volunteers from the National Civilian Community Corps that will help the center for the next three years, doing "a little bit of everything."The center is building new facilities, including a new indoor riding arena, a pre-engineered steel building that arrived last week.

Approximately 50 horses will be on display for auction at the Carroll County Agriculture Center in Westminster on Sunday, Feb. 26. One is blue, another has stripes and another has balloons. Another has the scene of a fox hunt painted on its side. Yet another comes with two tickets to a Broadway show. These horses don't eat much and can easily fit into your car - they aren't real, but rather a mix of ceramic statues, wooden models and others - all created for the "Horses of Many Colors for a Cause Retreat Round-Up," a fundraiser hosted by the Horse of Course 4-H Club, and benefiting The Retreat at Beckleysville.

Over the past seven years, Bob Porter Sr. has given pickup trucks, a tractor, several tons of hay and countless hours of his own time to the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Lisbon.Last week the 63-year-old Woodbine resident had to make perhaps the most difficult sacrifice of all -- taking credit for his contributions.While he enjoys volunteering for the center, which helps disabled children, Mr. Porter wants to be left alone, not written about in newspapers or feted by a television station.

PORT DEPOSIT -- There were balloons bouncing, welcome-home banners flapping, high school cheerleaders performing and a crowd of more than 3,000 people practicing a collective holler as they waited for the limousine to roll up the freshly paved driveway. One week after Extreme Makeover: Home Edition sent the Luther family packing on a vacation to Italy, Renee Sherrard-Luther and her two teenage children returned yesterday to roars from onlookers. On cue, the crowd shouted "Move that bus!"

Whether it rains or shines this weekend, local activities will give us all a chance to enjoy a great weekend.Glenwood's Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center presents "Art and Music in the Meadows" beginning at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. With County Executive Charles I. Ecker as an auctioneer, you'll have a chance to bid on wonderful works of art by local artists. Glenelg High School's jazz band, under the direction of Barry Enzman, will perform during the preview, when you can view the art and chat with the artists while enjoying a wine and cheese reception.

Thirty-six employees from Verizon Wireless in North Laurel spent Friday cleaning up at the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Glenwood. The volunteers spent the day painting, weeding and mulching the complex. They focused on the center's Children's Memorial Garden, which was built in memory of youths helped by the center who have died. Idell Tillman, of the company's human resources department, organized the effort, part of the company's fourth Day of Caring program to help neighbors in need.

RESTORATION OF the barn exterior at the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Glenwood is nearly complete.Photographers from Roofing, Siding and Insulation magazine -- the 22,000-circulation journal that sponsored the project -- are to take pictures of the barn today, said the riding center founder and director, Helen Tuel.Tuel is looking for sponsors to help refurbish the interior of the barn while she works to build the riding program.Money for the center is to be raised at its annual golf tournament May 5 at Cattail Creek Country Club.

Deepa Long was 2 1/2 years old when her right leg was severed and her mother was killed in a train wreck in India.She was lucky to be alive, and luckier still to be adopted by an American couple who brought her to Columbia and raised her.Now Deepa has discovered new legs, and in the words of poet John Anthony Davis, "wings to fly me on a pleasure course, for I can mount and ride a horse."Deepa read that poem, "I Can," in honor of the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Lisbon, where interaction with horses is used as medicine for mental and physical disabilities.

THE RAIN STOPPED just in time for the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center's dedication ceremony and blessing of its new Bank Barn and Conference Center Sunday.About 400 people gathered at the Glenwood site.Denise Koch of WJZ-TV was mistress of ceremonies.The center's founder and director, Helen Tuel, said the crowd was delighted with the performance by the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center drill team -- made up of four youngsters with disabilities and four without who work as buddies.

HELEN TUEL is an unmitigated optimist. She finds ways to develop the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Glenwood at every turn.Now, the founder and director of the facility that helps hundreds of children and adults overcome disabilities through the use of horses is about to see another vision become reality.RSI magazine, a trade journal that targets roofing, siding and insulation contractors, selected the TRRC as the winner of a nationwide remodeling contest.The magazine's staff is mobilizing building materials manufacturers, contractors and architects to renovate the TRRC's large, 100-year-old barn.

Thirty-six employees from Verizon Wireless in North Laurel spent Friday cleaning up at the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Glenwood. The volunteers spent the day painting, weeding and mulching the complex. They focused on the center's Children's Memorial Garden, which was built in memory of youths helped by the center who have died. Idell Tillman, of the company's human resources department, organized the effort, part of the company's fourth Day of Caring program to help neighbors in need.

AMANDA DECKER of Dayton and her friends love the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center (TRRC) in Glenwood. When they saw an opportunity to help the center, they were eager to contribute. On Nov. 4, Oreo, a well-loved and important Norwegian fjord horse, died. That left the center with one Norwegian fjord, and a second was needed to meet the needs of the center's therapeutic riders. "We need a bombproof pony," said Amanda's mother, Laura Decker, and this type of horse fits that description.

Residents who want to see a farm on the Broadneck Peninsula used only for a public equestrian center suffered a setback yesterday when state lawmakers rejected a bill that supported their cause. Members of the House Commerce and Government Matters Committee voted down legislation co-sponsored by Republican Dels. James E. Rzepkowski of Glen Burnie and Robert C. Baldwin of Crownsville late Wednesday. The vote was unanimous, with one member absent. "It was a bold piece of legislation, but I think what is important is that the residents of the Broadneck community, who felt underrepresented, had an opportunity to bring this travesty to the light of day," Rzepkowski said.

BUTTE, N.D. - Everyone here knew this was coming. The harbingers have appeared year after year. Butte had seven churches, then six, then five, four, three, now two. There used to be two banks, now one, which stays open just half a day. The Laundromat requires just one washer and one dryer these days. Saturday, with the soil too wet to till and two layers of clouds sliding in different directions above the plains, a crowd larger than the entire population of the town, which is 125 or so, gathered at Butte Public School.

WITH LOSSES of $1.5 million since 1986 -- more than $350,000 in the last three budget years alone -- the Columbia Horse Center hangs on by threads of tradition and remarkable concern for a tiny sliver of Columbia residents.No business could tolerate these losses. Of course, the horse center, supported by Columbia property assessments, isn't really a business. Some slack is afforded, and should be, to facilities and programs that serve the community. The problem here is that the community as a whole shows little interest in horses.

Sunlight streams through the windows of the immaculate barns at the Andover Equestrian Center, lighting up the freshly painted walls, new flooring and sliding stall doors. But the stalls stand empty. It's close to two years since the horses stabled at the Linthicum facility were moved out so the county could renovate the riding complex and look for a new manager. With construction work nearly complete, county officials say they are about to begin searching for a center operator and hope to fill the job by the end of the year.

Therapeutic: Having healing or curative powers. That is what the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center provides.It has more than 300 horseback riding students, mostly from the Baltimore-Washington area. Many of these youngsters and adults, director Helen Tuel says, have disabilities stemming from physical and mental conditions. They ride to improve their lives through the stimulation they receive at the center.On Saturday, the center on Shady Lane in Glenwood will dedicate its first building completed under its planned $3.5 million expansion.

Nancy McCary rides a powerful Belgian horse in tight circles, then along the outer railing of an indoor horse ring before guiding the gelding into the curve.She rides by feel, sensing the animal lifting his head or shifting his weight, then nudging and prodding the beast quickly around the ring."Riding has meant everything to me," said McCary, 44, who's been blind for 22 years. "I feel like I'm not handicapped."McCary takes riding lessons, an hour at a time, at the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center (TRRC)

Lorraine Hansberry titled her last play "Les Blancs" in reaction to Jean Genet's "Les Negres," which she felt was too simplistic.There is certainly nothing simplistic about "Les Blancs," which is receiving a thought-provoking and at times stirring production at Center Stage under Marion McClinton's swift, insightful direction.Although the play is set in an imaginary African nation on the brink of overthrowing colonial rule, Hansberry's canvas is broader than any one country or continent. This is a play that explores identity, self-determination, responsibility, heritage and, especially, love vs. duty.