Rural

Dr. Emily Wilson Walker, a doctor who practiced medicine for more than 50 years in rural southern Anne Arundel County before retiring in her late 70s, died Tuesday of cardiac arrhythmia at Genesis Elder Care Spa Creek Center in Annapolis. She was 103. Her arrival in the rural crossroads village of Friendship on a warm afternoon in 1929 had an inauspicious beginning, according to a biography, Doc: The Life of Emily Hammond Wilson. written by Therese Magnotti. As she stepped off the bus from Baltimore at the village general store, she was greeted by disappointed townsfolk, who had expected a male physician, not a 25-year-old woman.

There was consensus among County Council members last week that Harford's rural landscape is threatened, that its schools are crowded and that current policies have failed. How that would translate into votes on a bill tightening the link between elementary school capacity and new development, however, was tough to predict. The bill revised the county's adequate public facilities ordinance, bringing the county's criteria for determining school capacity in line with the state standard.

Benefit concert -- The Shady Side Rural Heritage Society will present "Music by the Bay," an afternoon of concerts, wine tasting, and auctions at the Capt. Salem Avery House Museum, 1418 E.W. Shady Side Road, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. today. Admission is $25. 410-267-0654. Pictured are society members Andrew Garte (counter-clockwise from back); his mother, Loretta; and his daughters, Maxi and Nicole.

County Councilman Greg Fox faces a daunting task if he wants to fulfill his hope of trimming or eliminating a proposed fire property-tax increase for fiscal year 2008. The Howard County Council's only Republican must win support from at least two Democrats to prevail, while County Executive Ken Ulman can appeal to his fellow Democrats, who supported him in last year's election. Council members say they are working for the county's benefit and are not driven by political partisanship, but those "D's" and "R's" next to their names do mean something, after all. "They've all been very open, very congenial," Fox said about his Democratic council colleagues, noting that his suggestions on the recently modified property tax cut for seniors got serious consideration and made a difference.

The country store feeling is alive and well -- and living in Highland.For many Howard County residents, Highland is defined by the stores and businesses clustered around the junction of Routes 108 and 216. For those who live there and nearby, however, Highland embodies much more, a neighborly rural serenity that attracts folks and keeps them coming back after they begin to have families of their own.That draw has been augmented in the last few years by...

ZHONGJIANG, China -- Seventeen-year-old Yang Tingxiu became suspicious when she noticed the "factory director" was dressed like a peasant. After she stepped inside the man's home, his family members closed the door and blocked her escape."

The owners of the Greenspring Racquet Club again have failed in their effort to persuade Baltimore County officials to allow them to build two office buildings and a parking garage on 5.5 acres at Falls and Greenspring Valley roads.A county hearing officer ruled this week that William and Loretta Hirshfeld, the club's owners, fell short in proving that their project should be exempt from a new county law that restricts development next to rural areas.Timothy Kotroco, the hearing officer, said the Hirshfelds failed to show that their project would not be detrimental to the surrounding area.

150 years ago in The SunAugust 7, 1849: A Good Moment -- Early on Sunday morning the plugs in many of the streets were unscrewed, and the fresh water gushing out therefrom, washed the gutters more effectually than ever. The very atmosphere also appeared purer and cooler whilst the streams which rushed down the streets washed away the dirt and filth with which they were lined.100 years ago in The SunAugust 8, 1899: WESTMINSTER, MD., Aug.7. -- The experiment of free mail service in the rural districts of Carroll County, begun April 3, has proved successful beyond expectations.

The owners of Greenspring Racquet Club again are trying to get around a new county law that limits development of their property -- this time asking a county zoning commissioner for permission to build two office buildings and a garage.Yesterday, in the first day of a two-day hearing, a consultant hired by the club's owners argued that the five- and six-story office buildings and attached four-deck garage would be in keeping with state efforts to curb sprawl."This is in line with the Smart Growth Initiative," said land planning consultant Sean Davis.

The developers of Green Spring Station have decided to scale back a proposed expansion of their office and retail complex rather than battle a county law that limits development near rural areas.Foxleigh Enterprises, the developer of the successful project at Falls and Greenspring Valley roads, will ask the county next week to approve a 101,000-square-foot, two-story office and retail building that would include three levels of underground parking, said Herb Fredeking, a Foxleigh principal.

Grant will aid minority, rural communities University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers received nearly $5 million in federal stimulus money from the National Institutes of Health to create two programs to improve health for minority and rural communities. A $2.4 million grant will create a national Bioethics Research Center, which aims to confront ethical issues in research and how those concerns affect minority health. The center, a partnership with Bowie State University, will address a historic lack of trust that some minority groups have when it comes to medical research by seeking ways to increase minority participation in clinical trials.

Western Howard County residents who have battled for nearly two years to block a proposed used-car dealership in rural Daisy, dominated County Executive Ken Ulman's third annual town hall meeting Wednesday night in Ellicott City. Nine of the 16 speakers at the 73-minute forum at Mount Hebron High School talked about the car lot and business zoning in rural areas, and most urged Ulman to back the quick establishment of a citizens task force to study the issue before the county undertakes a once-a-decade general plan review.

OAKLAND - On four hours of sleep after a late-night emergency C-section, after resuscitating the newborn who wasn't breathing, Dr. Ken Buczynski is back on the maternity ward at 7:30 a.m. with another woman about to deliver. Before the end of the day comes 14 hours later, he'll leave and return several times, to administer the epidural himself and later to bring dark-haired Miley Welch into the world. He will visit a hospitalized elderly man who is having part of his foot amputated. And he'll see more than two dozen other patients in his office, from a 6-month-old with a bump on his eyeball to a 62-year-old struggling to control her diabetes.

Two people died in an early-morning fire Friday at an apartment in rural northern Baltimore County, authorities said. Baltimore County fire crews received a report of a fire, but without an address, in Upperco. Firefighters who searched the area found the fire at a home in the 17100 block of Pleasant Meadow Road, officials said. The 105-year-old home had been divided into two apartments, and one was on fire when crews arrived about 5 a.m., authorities said. Firefighters found a man and a woman on the second floor who had died.

Article on car lot missed key point Larry Carson's article Feb. 1 on the effort of Concerned Citizens of Western Howard County to block development of a used car lot in Daisy missed one important point our community organization has been making about the need for rezoning in the county's rural west. That point is that if rezoning had been done by the county when it should have been done, we would not be fighting a proposal to build a used car lot in a rural community where the General Plan in 1990 and 2000 said such large-scale commercial development is impractical and undesirable outside of five designated rural growth areas, of which Daisy is not one. The problem was created by the failure in the 2003-04 comprehensive rezoning process to follow policy set in the 2000 General Plan that was adopted to protect the rural character and resources of the county's largest remaining area of agricultural preservation, rural conservation and rural residential land - nearly 70,000 acres.

At the first of two public hearings on the county's zoning code rewrite, questions and concerns with a proposed transfer of development rights dominated the discussion. The hearing drew such a large crowd that officials will continue the session Tuesday evening at North Harford High School. While county officials consider the sale of agricultural development rights to property owners in designated growth areas a giant step in land preservation, many residents fear it will create sprawl in rural enclaves, such as Fallston and Joppa.

Founded first by English settlers and soon after populated with an influx of German immigrants, the small town of Manchester thrived because of its location between Hanover, Pa., and Baltimore. Located in northeast Carroll County, Manchester has steadily grown from a small agricultural town to a popular destination for homeowners seeking large yards in a quiet setting. Manchester is known for its Main Street lined with local businesses and residences, but is also a ZIP code that includes vast farmland and stretches into northwest Baltimore County.

During the late 1800s, Clarksville served as a small rural town with a post office, blacksmiths and various stores catering to the surrounding farming community. Today, Clarksville is defined by the intersection of routes 108 and 32, with the community itself acting as a crossroads where Howard County's busy suburban side meets its more rural and open landscape. It still serves as a local commercial hub for the outlying area, but it has managed to balance open space and rolling hills as it continues to grow.

MASSEY -- Sean Jones surveys the lush green expanse of ripening winter wheat that his dairy herd will be munching all year. Fourteen hundred acres - looking in any direction, it's pretty much all you can see. This uninterrupted vista is what convinced the Jones clan (including Sean's parents, two brothers and their families) to pull up stakes in 1995, swapping their farm near Mount Holly, N.J., to come here to Kent County, one of the remaining spots on the East Coast where farming endures as the cornerstone of a rural way of life.

Art museum imperils area's rural heritage I am saddened and disgusted by the Baltimore County Council's apparent support of legislation to override agricultural zoning to create an art museum in a farming community, and with the one-sided coverage of the issue by The Sun ("Museum proposed in rural Balto. Co.," Feb. 27). Agricultural zoning is designed to preserve farmland and the viability of farming as a way of life. Each exception that permits a nonconforming use makes it all easier for the next nonconforming use to obtain approval; this is a process of slow erosion of an area's rural character, and by the time its effects are widely recognized, it is too late.