Rodgers Forge

James S. Keelty Jr., who built Baltimore County's Rodgers Forge and headed the Baltimore Orioles in the 1950s, died yesterday of congestive heart failure at his home in Mays Chapel, one of the many neighborhoods he helped create. He was 91. The president of the Orioles from 1955 to 1959, he was the former chairman and president of a homebuilding firm founded by his father in 1904. Keelty-built residences fill large sections of Baltimore City and Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties. Born in Baltimore and raised on Poplar Grove Street, he attended St. Cecilia School in Walbrook and was a 1929 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School.

Come fall, fourth-graders at Rodgers Forge Elementary will report to the crowded Towson-area school each morning before heading next door to Dumbarton Middle School. But they won't be going to their new classrooms on foot. Students who both walk and ride to the elementary will make the trip of about one-fifth of a mile to Dumbarton by shuttle bus. The ride should be a quick one - about two minutes down Dumbarton Road, where both schools sit, separated by a playing field. In the afternoon, shuttles will return the children to Rodgers Forge.

The recent rise in foreclosures isn't hitting only homeowners. An apartment complex just north of Baltimore that is in the midst of being converted to condominiums is in default and is to be auctioned off next month, the auctioneer said yesterday. Renovations of the 508-unit Rodgers Forge Condominiums, built about 1955, began last year as the cool-down in the housing market accelerated. Developer Triton Rodgers Forge LLC, confident that the auction won't occur, is refinancing the property and expects to finish the process by April 30. "Once the refinance is complete, the developer intends to recommence construction at the site, and the foreclosure proceedings will be moot," said Eddie Price, general counsel for Annapolis-based Triton Real Estate Partners, of which Triton Rodgers Forge is an affiliate.

Travelers whizzing up and down York Road probably don't realize when they get to Stevenson Lane, they're at the epicenter of Rodgers Forge. Recently, colleague Laura Vozzella reported in her column that The Times of London, in a profile of Olympian Michael Phelps, said that he hailed from "the blue-collar mill town of Towson" - to be more accurate, it's Rodgers Forge. We take our neighborhoods seriously around here. Rodgers Forge has Phelps, and Towson can claim Olympic swimmers Anita Nall (1992)

TCA good, clear bank surveillance photograph of a rape suspect, combined with intensive publicity of that photograph, has led Baltimore County police to arrest two men they say raped, kidnapped and robbed a Rodgers Forge woman May 30.Derrick Adams, 17, from the Park Heights area of Baltimore City, was arrested by county police Tuesday evening and charged as an adult.Mr. Adams and Horace Leroy Montaque, 21, of the 2300 block of McCulloh St., have been charged with first-degree rape, perverted sex practice, kidnapping and robbery.

Two Baltimore County banks were robbed yesterday, one by men armed with handguns and the other by a man carrying a note claiming he was armed, authorities said.In Catonsville, two men entered the First Virginia Bank in the 900 block of Frederick Road shortly after the bank opened at 9 a.m. and brandished handguns, police said. The men fled through a rear door with an undisclosed amount of cash.One robber was described as a black male in his mid- to late 20s, about 6 feet tall and weighing 170 to 180 pounds.

At this writing, it is positively chilly - 91 degrees. But warmer temperatures are on the way. After all, it is summer! Well, this summer Melinda Cianos' dream came true. When one embarks on a big undertaking, it's always nice to have the love and support of family, friends and neighbors. Melinda certainly had it, and her achievement of a bachelor's degree in education - at age 45 - is the result! "People talk about a village, and that is exactly what Rodgers Forge is," she said.

On a hallway wall of the Rodgers Forge home of Thomas and Elena Murphy rests a piece of needlework that was given as a wedding present to Mr. Murphy's maternal grandparents."

Harry Truman was president, trolley cars were running on York Road and hemlines were not what they are today, when Larry and Eileen Taylor first turned the front door key of their Regester Avenue home in Rodgers Forge on a cool November day in 1950. "We paid $11,500 for an end-of-group home and were its first occupants. It was already completed, but the houses across the street were still being built when we moved in," said Eileen Bohli Taylor, 87, who has been married to her husband, Larry, also 87, for 62 years.

About 200 people packed the Rodgers Forge United Methodist Church yesterday to learn more about four recent sexual assaults in their neighborhood -- and to find out what they can do to avoid becoming victims.Police officers were reluctant to provide more information about the attacks at the meeting -- one of two scheduled yesterday -- or detail the efforts they're making to find the suspects.However, Officer John S. Reginaldi, the crime prevention officer for the Towson precinct, departed from the script briefly to drive home a point.