Seniors

The 10 people formed two lines facing forward in front of a large mirrored wall. Dance instructor Irene Eddy flipped on a CD, found her place in a line and said, "This is the way the cowboys do the Charleston." The dancers tapped their right toes twice to the right side, and then their left toes twice to the left. With a spin, they picked up the pace. The dancers moved in perfect harmony for about an hour and a half on a recent afternoon in the basement of the South Carroll Senior and Community Center in Sykesville.

It used to be that a fat envelope in the mail meant you'd gotten into the college of your choice. Thin meant you were out. That was how high school students learned the result of their big college search. The news still comes this time of year, and it sometimes arrives by letter. But seniors might just as easily learn through an e-mail they open at midnight or from a Web site that a fellow student tells them to check - right now. What hasn't changed is that anxious teens are waiting for an answer from colleges that they believe will change their lives.

Down 11 points with a couple minutes gone in the fourth quarter yesterday, Mercy's seniors simply decided they wanted to play another day.So the No. 7-ranked Magic clamped down on defense, boxed out on the boards, got timely baskets, and hit some big free throws in the final minutes to survive a 65-62 scare from No. 10 St. Frances and advance to today's Catholic League semifinal.The Magic (20-11) will meet No. 6 St. Mary's, a 56-21 winner over the Institute of Notre Dame, at 1: 45 p.m. today at the Towson Center.

BALTIMORE CITYBryn Mawr Mawrtians (6-10)Coach: Neil GabbeyOutlook: Eight players return from last fall's "growing season," including three-year starters Erin Bellamy and Julia Brant, whom Gabbey calls anchors. Gabbey says the team serves and passes well and will be fundamentally strong. Improved junior Jen Brookland will have a significant role.Carver Bears (9-2)Coach: Cynthia TysonOutlook: New coach Tyson will be stressing fundamentals as the Bears rebuild. She will rely on junior Ebony Scott, the only returning player, to help tutor a group up from JV.Catholic Cubs (7-11)

Nevada will be the nation's most popular housing market for senior citizens over the next eight years, according to findings of a new National Association of Home Builders study, "Seniors in the Market for Housing: State Forecasts Through 2006."The results of the study by the NAHB were based on population forecasts from the U.S. Census Bureau on which states will have the greatest appeal for seniors in search of housing in the years to come. Nevada was first in the nation in demand intensity, or the appeal one state has over another.

For three-time defending Class 4A state champion Westminster, it appears to be business as usual, even despite the graduation of top runner Jason Santucci, county Runner of the Year last fall."

Charles Bennett, 77, of Sykesville remembers: "I was age 2 going on 3 when I got the mumps. In our beautiful North Dakota neocolonial home, my mother put me to bed in a room off the kitchen and she gave me a pictorial Bible storybook to look at."I `memorized' all the pictures, and to this day I remember them. I still have the book, one of my dearest possessions."John Strawhorn, 86, of Carroll Lutheran Village recently published his story in a book called "Returning to South Carolina: Growing Up in the Rural South in the Early 20th Century.

The Northern Virginia Seniors swept three matches for six points and took a 9 1/2-2 1/2 lead over the Free State Seniors after the first day of their annual Potomac Challenge competition at Cattail Creek Country Club yesterday.The format calls for four nine-hole events -- foursomes and alternate shot the first day; two-man aggregate and individual match play the second. Andy Miller-Bill Stricker won a four-ball match, Jerry Phipps-Charles Stouffer won and John Stecklein-Ned Longson halved in alternate-shot matches for the Free State points.

About two years ago, Bea Myers of Hagerstown joined United HealthCare's Medicare HMO.Then United pulled its Medicare HMO out of Washington County. After looking at various options, she switched to an HMO called MediCareFirst, offered by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.This week, CareFirst announced it, too, is leaving Washington County at the end of the year -- and 16 other Maryland counties, where, it says, federal payments are too low.She isn't sure where she'll turn next for coverage. "I haven't decided," she said yesterday.

Thirty Naval Academy seniors will perform for the last time tomorrow on a Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium field that hasn't exactly been home, sweet home.And nobody -- not the head coach nor the players -- can pinpoint the reason the Midshipmen have not won in their own house since Oct. 17, 1998, when Division I-AA Colgate was a 42-35 victim, or beaten a Division I-A opponent since Sept. 19 of last year when Navy overcame a Kent team about to launch the nation's longest losing streak.Home cooking has left Navy starving for a win in Annapolis.

It's the time in life people spend years working and saving to reach. The time when they get to the age where they can stop working, tap into their 401(k) accounts, sell their homes and move into a retirement community. Finally, someone else can mow the lawn and fix the toilet when it breaks. Or maybe, they can't move around as much by themselves anymore and choose to live in an assisted-living center where they can get help with basic needs. But seniors are feeling the pain of the recession just like everyone else.

I've been thinking about all the wasted green space. ... It should be used for open vegetable gardens," announced Bob Spongberg, after shuffling through his index cards of discussion ideas. "This is my current shtick." Spongberg, 82, fell silent for a moment and glanced around the room at the 17 other senior citizens who had assembled at Florence Bain Senior Center in Harper's Choice on a recent Monday morning. With name cards displayed and chairs pulled up to four tables set at right angles, the setting for the Current Events Group appears more formal than it actually is. The structure of these meetings - which have been held weekly for more than 15 years - calls for no strict rules of order, except there is a facilitator and no one shows disrespect for another person's opinion.

More than 80 percent of Baltimore high school seniors have met the High School Assessment requirements for graduation after the completion of nearly 5,000 projects - 1,942 of them submitted and graded in March. This is the first year that seniors must earn a minimum score on state tests in English, algebra, government and biology or complete project equivalents to earn a Maryland diploma. With one more test administration and three project submission deadlines still to go, 802 of 4,170 seniors in the city are still trying to qualify.

Centennial volleyball coach Larry Schofield sat at the end of his team's bench during a recent play day at River Hill and smiled. Judging by what he saw on the court, he had a lot to smile about. Schofield's Eagles are loaded with talent and experience, and expectations are high for the team, which begins the season ranked No. 1. It's the same spot Centennial occupied at the start of last season. And that's why Schofield's optimism is tempered by caution. "I do accept the level of talent we have on the team," said Schofield, in his second year as coach.

The Bain Center, 5470 Ruth Keeton Way, has been celebrating its 25 years of service to Howard County senior citizens with 12 days of events. The center, which serves about 150 seniors each day, opened its doors in the Harper's Choice Village Center in 1983 as the Florence Bain Senior Center, welcoming about 25 seniors daily. A wine tasting, the culmination of the month's celebration, is planned from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday. Daniel Wecker of The Elkridge Furnace Inn will present white varietals and light hors d'oeuvres.

President Bush yesterday signed into law a measure aimed at preventing falls among senior citizens. The Safety of Seniors Act of 2007 seeks to raise awareness - through education and research - of how falls affect seniors and what can be done to protect them. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who who chairs a subcommittee on aging, has pushed the measure for several years. Falls are the leading cause of death stemming from injury among people over age 65, accounting for 1.8 million emergency room visits and $27 billion in health care costs every year.

The 12 seniors on Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team met this week to figure out how to end the Blue Jays' first four-game losing streak since 1990. After about an hour and a half of airing their frustrations, the seniors were joined by the rest of the squad for another open forum that lasted nearly two hours. All this occurred before a team barbecue Sunday. "We're trying to fix our team. That's the most important thing right now," senior midfielder Stephen Peyser said. "We're not trying to make guys feel bad for what's been going on. It's not one specific guy. It's a lot of different guys.

On the first Saturday in December, Fang Mitchell slumped on a wooden bench inside the Coppin Center, contemplating the direction his once-proud Coppin State basketball program was headed. The direction was not good. The Eagles had just taken a 28-point pounding against Morgan State, the second-worst home loss in Mitchell's 22-year career. As the venerable coach sat there, he bemoaned the lack of leadership and passion, but especially the lack of defense. "I'm trying to find five people that make the game important to them," he said.

Ninety-one-year-old Mary Taliaferro's last living friend lives in Hawaii. To stay in touch with her, Taliaferro has opened a Gmail account and is slowly but surely conquering the new-to-her world of electronic messaging. It's slow going: Until this fall, Taliaferro didn't know what "sign ons" or "screen names" were. "I really wasn't too interested," Taliaferro said of learning how to use e-mail at this late stage. "But I wanted to see what goes on today. My children are all on this stuff.

Ida Canapp insists she would take her five medications and two vitamin pills every day, whether or not a nurse's aide came to her Parkville home to monitor her. But her niece, Renee Gowland of Monkton, knows this is the dementia talking. "She wouldn't take them. Or she wouldn't know if she was taking the a.m. or the p.m. [doses]." At 82, Canapp is energetic, hospitable and fiercely independent - with the help of Aricept, a drug that tempers the effects of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.