Vault

The vault at Monumental Life Insurance Co. at Charles and Chase streets is one of many antiques in the building. It was built in 1939 for $50,000 and held all the company's assets until 1990, says Walter Weiss, a former treasurer. "The door will not close if there is as much as a pin on the floor," Weiss says. "It fits like a glove." The company opened its building to the public earlier this month as part of a yearlong celebration to mark its 150th anniversary.

Harford Gymnastics Level 3 Team culminated its competition season by winning the Maryland State Championships in Williamsport on April 6. Team members included Greta Basil, Maranda Howell, Rachel Kelley, Sara Kate King, Madison Koors, Gianna Piccirilli, Madison Shaffery, Savannah Tamberino and Karlee Tuohy. The team is coached by Katy Dobson, Megan Blackburn and Sara Miller. Harford Gymnastics winning score of 112.075 was almost three points ahead of the second-place team, Cumberland's East-West Stars who scored 109.225.

After a dominant indoor track season, which included regional and 4A state pole vault titles and an improvement of more than 2 1/2 feet on his vaults, Perry Hall's David Russell encountered a very stiff challenge in his first outdoor meet:A stiff wind."

The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). We do not accept results by phone. When two Howard County teams play, players from both teams (first and last names) must be mentioned in the write-up. Softball The Western Howard County Fever 2K took second place in the 12U division of the North Carroll Hotshots Early Bird invitational April 13-14. The team went 2-1 in pool play, then defeated the Crofton Rebels and the Littlestown Thunder, 13-1 and 13-4, in the elimination round.

The body spotted Friday by a Verizon worker in an underground cable vault in North Baltimore's Mid-Govans neighborhood was that of a decomposed white female, and detectives are awaiting the results of an autopsy, according to police. The telephone cable splicer, Barry Schwaab, said he had been preparing to do routine maintenance on buried lines and was about to climb down into the vault through a manhole when he saw the body lying face-down in about 5 feet of water. The vault is on a wide alley off Benninghaus Road, just east of York Road.

In gymnastics circles, Kristie Snyder is almost ancient. She's 17.She might not be able to fly around the bars quite as quickly as a 75-pound 10-year-old, but that didn't matter this weekend at the Black-Eyed Susan Invitational.Snyder, who won the overall title in the seniors division on Friday night, was the only gymnast to qualify for the finals in all four events last night at the Towson Center.She won on the uneven bars with a 9.55, finished fourth on the vault (9.50), fourth on the beam (9.40)

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists begin digging this week for a pocket of disturbed soil that could mark a sand bar, a tree root or the blueprint to Utopia.In 1985, radar-like equipment revealed that there was something under Bruton Parish Church's graveyard that was different from untouched soil. That something may be a vault containing writings of British scientist and writer Sir Francis Bacon, some believe.But the anomaly could just be the footprint of an earlier search for Utopia.

Freshman Liane Williams won the all-around title for the second week in a row and set a school record in the vault to lead Towson State (5-0) to a triple victory in its home opener yesterday at the Towson Center.The Tigers had a 191.575 team score. James Madison was second with 183.850, Rutgers third with 182.950 and Temple fourth with 179.250.Williams broke the school record in the vault with a score of 9.925, one week after tying the school mark of 9.90. She also was first on the balance beam and third on the bars.

Atholton's pole vaulters could not be a more diverse trio.Omar El Sawi commands top billing as the Howard County record holder, two-time county indoor champ and defending Class 3A state indoor champ. The senior has qualified for the National High School Indoor Track Championships next month in Syracuse, N.Y.The No. 2 man is Ed LeBard, sometime class clown. The most athletic of the three, the junior also plays linebacker for the Raiders football team. LeBard is deaf, the result of a bout with malaria when he was an infant living in Africa.

After clearing 14 feet in last Monday's practice session in the Perry Hall High gymnasium, Dave Russell was looking to go one inch higher and break the county pole vault record at yesterday's Baltimore County Indoor Track Relay Championships at the Fifth Regiment Armory.The Perry Hall vaulter cleared 13-7 with plenty of room to spare on one of his early efforts but, as has been the case all season, when the bar was set at 14-1, Russell ran into trouble.His first trip down the runway toward a county record was cut short when an athlete inadvertently walked into his path.

John Tillman's weekly conference call was going well Tuesday morning until Kevin Dunleavy of The Washington Examiner asked a seemingly innocuous question. How did the Maryland coach feel about the Terps leapfrogging Loyola to move to the top of the latest United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll? “I didn't even know,” Tillman replied. “Are we ranked No. 1? I seriously have no idea. How are we No. 1? We just lost to this team in the national championship, and they won over the weekend.

Dr. Ben Carson says he didn't anticipate the reaction to what he considered his common-sense remarks as keynote speaker this month at the National Prayer Breakfast. But after video went viral of the trailblazing black neurosurgeon taking jabs at Barack Obama's health care overhaul a few feet from the president himself, some want the famed doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to parlay the attention into a new career: politics. "Here you have this guy who has been a celebrity minority for 30 years coming out and making the conservative case better than a lot of conservatives can," said Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large for National Review Online.

The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). We do not accept results by phone. When two Howard County teams play, players from both teams (first and last names) must be mentioned in the write-up. Questions? Call 410-332-6606. Field hockey The Howard Stampede Field Hockey Club won the U16 division of the MLK Champions of Tomorrow Tournament held Jan. 20 in Rockville. Howard Stampede had three wins and one tie to come in first place in their bracket and advance to the finals against SPark.

The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). We do not accept results by phone. When two Howard County teams play, players from both teams (first and last names) must be mentioned in the write-up. Questions? Call 410-332-6606. Running There were 95 runners who turned out on a warm, foggy afternoon Jan. 13 to participate in the third Howard County Striders winter weekly series 5K race at Lake Elkhorn. Karsten Brown won the overall race and Kendra Smith was first among the women.

The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Mondays. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). We do not accept results by phone. When two Howard County teams play, players from both teams (first and last names) must be mentioned in the write-up. Questions? Call 410-332-6578. Ice hockey Metro Maple Leafs The Metro Maple Leafs U-18AA travel hockey team won the Tier II Maryland State Championship March 9-10, sweeping a best-of-three series against the Howard Huskies at Kettler Ice Arena in Arlington, Va. The Maple Leaf team is made up of senior, junior and sophomore players, primarily from Howard and Anne Arundel counties.

A left calf injury didn't prevent kicker Billy Cundiff from rewriting a portion of the Ravens' record book. With a 36-yard field goal near the end of the first quarter and three extra points in Sunday's 24-10 win against the Indianapolis Colts, Cundiff passed former running back Jamal Lewis for second place on the franchise's all-time scoring list with 286 career points. Cundiff now trails Matt Stover, who ranks first with 1,464 points. “It is an honor,” Cundiff said.

Perna Gymnastics Club's Erica Ebaugh achieved the top all-around score at Sunday's Class 6 state championship meet.Competing in the 10-11 age bracket, she scored a 35.95, best among the roughly 60 gymnasts in that bracket and fifth highest among those at Level 6.Ebaugh scored 9.10 on vault (first), 8.40 on uneven bars, 9.05 on balance beam (second) and 9.40 on floor exercises.Six other Perna Gymnasts competed in the Level 6 12-14 bracket.Cindy Reese scored a 33.30 all-around, Jamie Horness 28.65, Kasey Thomas 29.75, Jessica Bracken 33.45 (including a ninth-place 9.00 on vault)

With a microscrew in her left elbow, a bow in her hair and ice in her heart, Shannon Miller took a grip on first place at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials last night.Three months after tumbling off the uneven bars and dislocating her elbow, the fragile-looking-yet-ferocious-performing 15-year-old from Edmond, Okla., led the compulsories at the Baltimore Arena, piling up a score of 57.057.Miller was all grace and guts, a 4-foot-7, 71-pound dancer who performed with a glint of steel. She stared down the toughest little tumbler of them all, 1991 all-around world champion Kim Zmeskal.

The Towson football team has made the race for the Colonial Athletic Association championship even more competitive. With Saturday's 40-30 win at Maine, Towson not only propelled itself into a three-way tie for first place with the Black Bears and New Hampshire, but also provided itself a springboard into the final two games of its CAA schedule. However, the Tigers insisted their focus Saturday was on the task at hand — stopping the Black Bears, who entered the game ranked seventh in the Football Championship Subdivision.

In a dimly lit underground vault a block from Camden Yards, the Federal Reserve is holding millions of dollars in cash that nobody wants. The money - stored in cloth and plastic sacks piled high on metal shelving units - is in the unloved form of dollar coins, some of them never used. But a 2005 law requires the reserve bank to keep ordering coins regardless of its stockpile, and so vaults in Baltimore and around the country are filling up. "This is just a small portion of what there is nationwide," Dave Beck, senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and regional executive for the Baltimore branch, said as he stood inside a small warehouse filled with money bags, each containing 2,000 coins.