Talbot County

Dewey H. McMahanStarted oil companyDewey H. McMahan, who operated a Talbot County oil company, died Saturday of kidney failure at the Memorial Hospital at Easton. He was 95.He joined the Sinclair Oil Co. in 1933 as the firm's Delmarva sales representative and worked there until 1949 when he became associated with the American Oil Co. and established McMahan Oil Co. in Easton. Although semi-retired since 1993 because of diabetes, which cost him both legs, he was chairman of the board of his company at the time of his death.

Jane B. Lowe, a Talbot County activist and widow of former House of Delegates Speaker Thomas Hunter Lowe, died of cancer Friday at Talbot Hospice in Easton. The longtime Wittman resident was 76. Jane Bradley was born in Washington and raised in Bethesda. She was a 1948 graduate of Bethesda Chevy Chase High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1952 at Washington College, where she also met her future husband while they were both students there. In 1952, she married Mr. Lowe and, while he studied law at the University of Maryland, she taught in Baltimore public schools.

ST. MICHAELS -- After planning some of the most highly acclaimed new towns in America, architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk have brought their talents to Maryland's Eastern Shore.The Florida-based designers recently unveiled plans for a $100 million-plus community in St. Michaels, a waterfront area with about 1,300 residents in Talbot County.Perry Point, which is the community's tentative name, would have 350 to 375 residences, a 30-room inn, corner store, post office, performing arts center, pools, tennis courts and a 3,000-foot-long park along the Miles River on 89 acres.

Douglas Hanks Jr., a retired Oxford real estate broker, author, sailor and carver whose interest in the history and people of the Talbot County community resulted in several books, died of cancer Saturday at his home there. He was 60. Mr. Hanks was born in Cambridge and briefly lived in Seaford, Del., but resided nearly all of his life in the quaint waterfront community overlooking the confluence of the Tred Avon and Choptank rivers. "He's everything the Eastern Shore was and is all about.

EASTON -- A Talbot County judge yesterday ordered businesswoman Carol F. Daffin to post a $20,000 bond or be jailed pending trial on felony charges, including allegations that she supplied crack cocaine to a member of one of the county's most prominent medical and business families.Ms. Daffin, a 41-year-old Easton resident and divorced mother of three, was arrested late Friday after police searched her home and dental supply business and seized about 37 grams -- 1.3 ounces -- of crack cocaine and $107,490 in cash.

ST. MICHAELS -- Hank and Jan Barth had a somewhat singular problem when they started looking for a new home: What do you choose when you live in a historic 42-room, 16-bath mansion already?They found the answer near this picturesque Talbot County town: A French Jamaican house, known locally as "Candy Kisses" because its octagonal pods resemble the foil-wrapped candies made by Hershey.When a friend who was also a Realtor in Maryland sent them a postcard with a picture of "Candy Kisses," the attraction was instant.

"Silent Fall,'' filmed in Talbot County, doesn't seem headed for blockbuster status. But the new murder mystery starring Baltimorean Ben Faulkner as an autistic child and Richard Dreyfuss as the psychiatrist who tries to learn what the boy witnessed, might contain surprises for some people in the film community.Sara Engram is editorial-page director of The Evening Sun.

An Eastern Shore couple arrested during a drug raid at their home Friday evening had a cache of weapons and ammunition, three pipe bombs and a Molotov cocktail, police said yesterday.Police said that when they raided the house in the 9400 block of Black Dog Alley in Easton about 9: 30 p.m. as part of a two-month investigation, they found the weapons, $10,000 worth of drugs, $2,726 in cash and paraphernalia.Charles Edward Cheezum Jr., 38, and his wife, Brenda Lee Cheezum, 36, were charged with numerous drug and weapon offenses, said Maryland state police spokesman Pete A. Piringer.

A man wanted in Talbot County on theft and other charges was arrested yesterday in Carroll County, where additional charges were filed against him and a girlfriend, according to state police at Westminster. Using information sent by the Talbot County sheriff's office Sunday, the man was located yesterday morning, in his mother's car at the home of a girlfriend's mother on Hoffman Mill Road near Hampstead, said Trooper Patrick McCrory. Griffith Reed Westerfield, 19, of Trappe and Shannon Lynn Shamer, 20, of the 2600 block of Hoffman Mill Road were in custody and awaiting an appearance before a court commissioner.

I don't know the Hamptons from Highlandtown, so I am not really qualified to answer this but I know you are, dear reader. Where is the "Hamptons of Maryland"? About a week ago, CNN.com published a list of cool day trips across the country, and our very own St. Michaels was included. But the piece called the Eastern Shore town the "Hamptons of Maryland," which gave me pause. I have heard Easton called by that moniker. And of course, there is the Hampton National Historic Site in Baltimore County, but that probably doesn't qualify as a waterfront vacation destination.