Union Bridge

Genive A. Brothers, 76, died Thursday at home. She was the wife of the late William T. Brothers. Before her retirement, she worked at Westminster Knit Corp. She was a member of Sandymount United Methodist Church. Survivors include a son, William O. of here; daughter, Janet L. Mathias of here; sisters Lillie Petry and Dorothy Leister, both of Pennsylvania, Helen Albert and Isabelle Sharkey, both of Westminster;brothers Charles, Elting and Calvin Dutterer, all of Westminster; four grandsons and three great-granddaughters.

Officials of the Carroll County Sheriff's Office on Friday released photos of a man identified as a "person of interest" in their investigation to find Mackenzie Lea Digiacomantonio, a 15-year-old from Union Bridge who they said has been missing since Dec. 19. The Sheriff's Office is seeking the public's help in identifying the man and the green pickup truck, possibly a Toyota, pictured in the photographs. He was seen at the 7-Eleven on South Main Street, Union Bridge at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 19. Officers would only describe him as a "person of interest," and said in a release that he "may be related to this investigation.

Richard Lee Stultz, former mayor of Union Bridge and a Korean War veteran, died Sept. 27 of a cerebral hemorrhage at Carroll Hospital Center. He was 81. Mr. Stultz, the son of a Lehigh Portland Cement Co. worker and a homemaker, was born in Hagerstown and raised in Union Bridge. He was a 1947 graduate of Elmer Wolfe High School and during the Korean War served with the Navy's amphibious forces of the Atlantic Squadron. Mr. Stultz worked as a carpenter for more than 40 years for Lehigh Portland Cement Co. in Union Bridge, until retiring in the 1990s.

John Tokar, owner of Vintage Restorations Limited, in Union Bridge, started tinkering with British cars in 1969 when he was a teen in Bayonne, N.J., and his uncle sold him a 1959 Hillman Minx for $50. "It needed a clutch, so I got involved in working on it and I never stopped," the 61-year-old New Jersey native recalled, pointing to a framed photo of his office wall of himself and that '59 Hillman. "That car was what got me started, then I went to Triumphs, and now my specialty is MGs, which is mostly what I do these days," he said, pointing to another photo, this one of himself a few years later, a college student standing next to a vintage Triumph Spitfire.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office is reporting that two people are in critical condition after a serious all-terrain vehicle accident that occured in the early morning hours of March 18 in the Union Bridge area. According to the Sheriff's Office account, at about 12:46 a.m. Sunday, sheriff's deputies responded to the 400 block of Mckinstrys Mill Road for the report of a single vehicle accident involving an ATV. At the scene, deputies determined that the operator had apparently lost control and struck a guard rail.

Union Bridge is a small town with a few big problems, but its residents are blessed with a spirit of determination. They'll need it because Union Bridge often seems to be an afterthought in county planning and budget deliberations. Residents also need a strong constitution to deal with Lehigh Portland Cement Co., the town's largest employer and taxpayer.The Carroll County commissioners have a history of neglecting the town. That situation has improved slightly in recent years. Through the determined efforts of town officials and residents, the woefully outdated Elmer Wolfe Elementary School is to be replaced by a new school.

The mixed blessings of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls as they are known to scientists, are well documented. Like asbestos and DDT, the benefits of these compounds to mankind were immediately apparent and seemingly without disadvantage, leading to widespread and often uncontrolled use.PCBs were widely used in industry for lubrication and insulation of electrical devices, because they are nonflammable and have a high electrical resistance. Then the chlorine-based chemicals were found to cause cancers in laboratory animals and liver damage to humans, leading to their virtual ban in 1979.

Honors students to be recognized at receptionNorthwest Middle School's School Improvement team will conduct an honors reception from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the school's cafeteria.BStudents with all A's and B's during the first marking period will be recognized. Qualifying students will receive a certificate and a bumper sticker. Parents are invited.The improvement team will also present school performance assessment results and the School Improvement plan for 1992-93 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday in the cafeteria.

John Tokar, owner of Vintage Restorations Limited, in Union Bridge, started tinkering with British cars in 1969 when he was a teen in Bayonne, N.J., and his uncle sold him a 1959 Hillman Minx for $50. "It needed a clutch, so I got involved in working on it and I never stopped," the 61-year-old New Jersey native recalled, pointing to a framed photo of his office wall of himself and that '59 Hillman. "That car was what got me started, then I went to Triumphs, and now my specialty is MGs, which is mostly what I do these days," he said, pointing to another photo, this one of himself a few years later, a college student standing next to a vintage Triumph Spitfire.

Environmental laws do get enforced, however slowly at times.  The Maryland Department of the Environment announced Wednesday it had taken action against about 18 individuals, companies and local governments for alleged violations of the state's laws governing lead paint and air and water pollution. Some of the violators listed in the department's release have paid or agreed to pay more than $100,000 in all in penalties, while state regulators are seeking more than twice that much combined in fines against the others.

When it comes to expanding its New Windsor quarry operation, Lehigh Cement Co. is looking years down the road. But it gave a preview Aug. 8 of its plan to transport millions of tons of stone between the quarry and its processing plant in Union Bridge about 4 1/2 miles away. Officials from the company provided the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission members and New Windsor residents with a bus tour of the proposed expansion site, which will encompass about 635 acres between Route 31 and Old New Windsor Road, just southeast of New Windsor.

Forty years later, records from Tropical Storm Agnes still stand. But the records barely tell the story. As measured at BWI Marshall Airport, June 1972 saw a record 9.95 inches of rain. June 21 and 22, meteorologists measured 2.19 inches of rain and 3.84 inches of rain, respectively. BWI, known as Friendship Airport at the time, reported a "surprisingly low" rain total of 6.62 inches from Agnes, according to a Sun article June 30, 1972. Elsewhere, the rain approached 15 inches.

UNION BRIDGE - O'Reilly Miani, a member of the Class of 2013 at Francis Scott Key High School, will become the new student representative on the Carroll County Board of Education this week. She will be installed as the student representative on June 13. "I ran for student representative on the board because I saw it as the most effective way to help my classmates and gain valuable life experiences," she said in a school system release. She has been involved in student government at FSK, and has served as the historian for the Student Government Association, treasurer of the Leo Club, and SGA representative to the National Honor Society.

For nearly a century, Carroll County's smallest town has supplied stone to the massive Lehigh Cement Co. plant that employs many in the community. But the company finds itself at a crossroads — with the quarry nearly depleted, it is eyeing a new supply from a limestone-rich mine that it owns in another town. The company's plan: Construct a 4.5-mile conveyor system that would run under roads, rails and streams — and over acres of protected farmland between the quarry and the plant in Union Bridge.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office is reporting that two people are in critical condition after a serious all-terrain vehicle accident that occured in the early morning hours of March 18 in the Union Bridge area. According to the Sheriff's Office account, at about 12:46 a.m. Sunday, sheriff's deputies responded to the 400 block of Mckinstrys Mill Road for the report of a single vehicle accident involving an ATV. At the scene, deputies determined that the operator had apparently lost control and struck a guard rail.

Sometimes politics in Carroll County resemble Kabuki Theater. Everyone knows the plot, and the only matter of interest is the pronunciation of the expected script and the stylized movements of the actors. Such is the current play entitled "Drafting a New Commissioner District Map. " You may remember the last performance a few years ago, in which three Democrats on the redistricting committee and one representative of the county voted for one particular option - a sensible map with compact districts - but the delegation to Annapolis (all Republicans of course)

UNION BRIDGE - A 26-year-old man from Pennsylvania was arrested this week and charged in the June robbery of a Union Bridge convenience store. Michael Joseph Springer, 26, from Waynesboro, Pa., was arrested Aug. 9 by deputies of the Carroll County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office said that on June 14, at about 2:20 a.m., deputies responded to a hold-up alarm at the 7-Eleven in the 100 block of Main Street in Union Bridge. Deputies said that a white male wearing a black hoodie, white mask and black gloves had entered the store displaying a handgun and demanded money from the cashier.