Swim Club

Owners Keith and Kathy Rawlings are the driving forces behind the success of The Arena Club, this year’s BEST OF winner in four categories: Health Club , Indoor Activity , Party Place and Swim Club . “People and relationships are what matters in life,” says Kathy. “The Arena club staff all live in Harford County—our families and friends are all part of this community. It is important to us to make everyone feel welcome and comfortable so we can help them achieve their goals.” This hands-on, family approach to their business is a large part of the Rawlings’ success today.

Three years ago, James Becker was doing what many vigorous 15-year-old boys do - playing baseball, basketball and soccer. He swam competitively and whacked forehands for his school's tennis team. Now he is severely disabled, must use a wheelchair and is under the constant care of his mother. His speech is little more than a series of guttural noises. The accident that reduced James to such circumstances occurred at the Woodcroft Swim Club in Parkville on July 29, 2006, when, his family's lawyer says, he almost drowned.

Neighbors in North Linthicum have gathered at their community pool for more than three decades' worth of summers. Friends barbecued. Children learned to swim. Teenagers got their first jobs as lifeguards. Now, the pool has become another victim of the financial crisis. Faced with years of declining membership and mounting debt - and dim prospects for a loan to ride out the slump - it is unlikely to open for another season. "Every year, the pool makes enough just to squeak by," said Tu Armagost, president of the North Linthicum Recreation Club, which owns and operates the facility.

Thomas G. Ward, an insurance company executive and former president of the Towson Business Association, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Thursday at Holly Hill Manor in Towson. He was 72. Mr. Ward grew up in Stoneleigh and graduated from Towson High School in 1955. After being stationed in Germany with the Army, he met Joan I. Artka at a neighborhood bowling alley and fell in love at first sight, said a daughter, Stacey Lynn Munsell of Lutherville. The couple married in 1962, she said, with a reception at Peerce's Plantation.

Amanda Koss has grown accustomed to almost daily phone calls from people seeking a public swimming pool in Harford County. They ask where they can go if they just want to swim outdoors for the day with their family. She tells them Pennsylvania. "At least three or four times a week, more when it's really hot outside, people call me looking for public swimming pools," said Koss, who has managed the private North Harford Swim Club in Jarrettsville the past three years. "I tell them the closest one that I know is Shanbergers Pool in Fawn Grove."

Devotees will tell you that Padonia Swim Club is more than just a place to go swimming. For some, it is where they got their first job, sent their kids to day camp, paddled on the pond, sparked summer romances, got married and sipped cocktails at the cabana bar.

Criminals did time in jailhouses at the corner of Towsontown Boulevard and Bosley Avenue as far back as the mid-19th century. At least two were hanged on the property. Now Towson-area community leaders have their eyes on the land as a spot for fun and relaxation. Some favor a park with a gazebo and benches. Others see it as a good site for indoor basketball courts. And one group thinks it would be a good place for a swim club. "If you build it, people will walk to it," said Mike Ertel, president of the Greater Towson Council of Community Associations and a committee member of Towson Swim Center, the organization that would run a members-only pool at the site.

Residents of Kings Contrivance village are invited to celebrate the village's 30th birthday and Columbia's 40th birthday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. June 10 with a family picnic at Amherst House, 7251 Eden Brook Drive. Participants can take a picnic dinner and a blanket. Drinks, dessert, entertainment and crafts for children are planned. The event, which has a medieval theme, will feature medieval-style singers and an activity in which children can decorate crowns and coats of arms. Information or registration: 410-381-9600.

The Annapolis Swim Club's athletes keep busy throughout the winter, training and competing on a regular basis. But now that summer's here, the ASC people are busy. They have shifted their training to the outdoor pools in the area and are preparing for some big summer competitions, starting this week in Florida. Coach Ken DeGruchy is taking 26 swimmers to Fort Lauderdale for the Florida International Age Group championships at the Swimming Hall of Fame starting tomorrow. The club also will come to Baltimore and travel to Buffalo, N.Y., for another competition later in the summer.

Huddled under a beach umbrella, Ivy Davy savored the sliver of shade she had claimed for herself as she watched her daughter's swim competition yesterday. Every now and then, she wandered closer to poolside to cheer for her daughter, Kaydra Davy-Coore, 11 - and, if she was lucky, to catch a splash as the swimmers dived into the water. Surviving on the sweltering sidelines involved a bit of ingenuity for the estimated 1,500 parents, coaches and spectators cheering on more than 800 swimmers.