Vault

A few history buffs from Hampstead were nosing around for artifacts last week in the old bank building that will soon be the town police station, when they came to the elaborate iron safe inside the bank vault. The safe was locked.What could be inside? Old railroad stock? Wads of money? Dust?They found gold.Antique gold and silver pocket watches-- 49 of them-- were sitting in display trays and covered with just a light coat of dust."When you're a kid, you think every safe holds a treasure-trove," said Town Manager Kenneth Decker.

Greetings go ethnicHallmark has expanded its line of greeting cards this summer with cards in Spanish for Hispanics, humorous cards marking Jewish celebrations such as bar and bat mitzvahs, and "Certainly, Lord!" cards for African-Americans who want to give greetings with a religious note. The cards cost from $1.95 to $2.95 and are available at Hallmark Gold Crown stores. To find the one nearest you, call 800-HALLMARK. -- K. M.Got a potato of a couch?If your sofa could use a makeover, you might want to enter the Sure Fit slipcover company's fifth annual Ugly Couch Contest.

Glenelg's Beth Santilli and Atholton's Michael Zaron each led their respective teams to victory at yesterday's Class 1A-2A Central Regional Championships.Santilli, who left the 5th Regiment Armory on a stretcher on her last visit to Baltimore, walked out of yesterday's meet not only unscathed but with four ribbons -- three first-place blues and the Gladiators' second straight region crown.The senior, who was accidentally kicked in the head while stretching on the floor during last month's Howard County championships, won the 1,600-meter run, the 3,200, anchored the Gladiators' winning 3,200 relay, and finished second to Oakland Mills' star Danielle Stoddart in the 800."

A photograph in yesterday's Maryland section showing the door of a bank vault now used as an office at Health Care for the Homeless was inadvertently reversed.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 7/10/98

In a couple ways, the annual Pangaea International Track and Field Meet last night took on the look of a family affair.That, despite the presence of hundreds of athletes from 42 high schools all over the state and more than a dozen from Kazan, Russia.First, there was Glenelg's Lori Tvarkunas, who captured the girls' pole vault at 9 feet, 3 inches in a jump-off with Leonardtown's Marsh Day. Vaulting runs in her family, it seems.Then, watching Joel Brown skim over the hurdles, which he did impressively while winning the 55-meter highs in 7.5 seconds, and you had to think of his school, Woodlawn -- and its track family.

In a couple ways, the annual Pangaea International Track and Field Meet last night took on the look of a family affair.That, despite the presence of hundreds of athletes from 42 high schools all over the state and more than a dozen from Kazan, Russia.First, there was Glenelg's Lori Tvarkunas, who captured the girls' pole vault at 9-feet, 3-inches in a jump-off with Leonardtown's Marsh Day. Vaulting runs in her family, it seems.Then, watching Joel Brown skim over the hurdles, which he did impressively while winning the 55-meter highs in 7.5 seconds, and you had to think of his school, Woodlawn -- and its track family.

Federal investigators say the head teller of a College Park credit union thought she had the perfect ruse: get a friend to rob the bank and pretend to be a helpless employee stuck in the vault.But authorities have charged the teller, April Montague, 23, of Columbia and her boyfriend, Robert English, 23, of Baltimore in the robbery of the State Employee Credit Union of Maryland in the 9000 block of Route 1 in College Park on Thursday."We feel that this is strictly an inside job," said Special Agent Larry K. Foust, an FBI spokesman.

Two Baltimore men were convicted yesterday of terrorizing a NationsBank manager and his wife -- tying them up in their home in an attempt to get information about opening a bank vault.Daniel L. Spence, 32, and Wayne E. Jackson, 41, both of the 300 block of Ilchester St., were convicted in U.S. District Court in Baltimore of attempted bank robbery, firearms violations and arson. The jury deliberated for less than three hours.The attack happened about 8 p.m. Dec. 11, moments after Peter and Stacy Gianiodis returned to their Elkridge home.

A federal judge sentenced two Baltimore men to lengthy prison terms yesterday for the robbery of a NationsBank manager and his wife, who were tied up in their home by intruders looking for the combination to a bank vault.Wayne E. Jackson, 41, was sentenced to life plus 35 years, and Daniel L. Spence, 32, to 59 years for an attack that Judge Frederic N. Smalkin said was particularly vicious."This is a heinous crime, and it deserves severe punishment," Smalkin said in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

A photograph in yesterday's Maryland section showing the door of a bank vault now used as an office at Health Care for the Homeless was inadvertently reversed.The Sun regrets the errors.When Louise Treherne leads recovering drug and alcohol abusers to her basement office at Health Care for the Homeless, faces drop.Treherne passes an open 18-ton, 18-inch-thick rectangular door and enters a steel-walled space, 22 feet by 13 feet."Does the door close?" clients ask.Over the years, Equitable Trust Co. kept millions of dollars in cash and customers kept valuables in safe deposit boxes nestled against the 18-inch-thick walls.

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.

BEIJING - The gold medal went away a little for the United States today when the tiny Chinese uneven bars workers twirled and let go and caught those chalky bars as if they were in a gym with a few friends and no pressure. And it went away a little more when Alicia Sacramone fell on her mount on the balance beam and scored nearly half a point lower than usual. It was gone for sure when Sacramone, up first on floor exercise, fell on her second pass, a hard sit down when the U.S. needed perfection.

The first real marquee event in gymnastics airs live tonight with the women's team finals. The top two seeds are China and the United States. Each has an interesting story line. The Chinese are rocked by allegations that some of their athletes are underage (16 by year's end is the minimum). The U.S. team looks like a MASH unit with injuries decimating a pretty good team. So what happens? That's why they hold the competition, to find out. Apparatus in Women's Play Floor exercise: On a 40-foot-by-40-foot mat, a gymnast gets no more than 90 seconds to perform a choreographed routine to music.

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.

The blueprint on how to beat the New York Yankees has been missing from the Orioles' vault for so long. No matter what they tried, no matter how hard they battled, the result was usually frustration. But on two consecutive nights here, the Orioles appeared to have discovered a formula. Get a gritty outing from a rookie starter, get several big outs from the resurgent bullpen, get enough clutch hits from an offense that is finding ways to beat teams without home runs, and suddenly the Yankees don't look so invincible.

Anticipating the privations of Prohibition, Baltimore's most celebrated journalist and critic sold his automobile and used the cash to stock up on the best wines and liquors he could find. H. L. Mencken then protected his cache in a homemade vault in the basement of his Hollins Street home. On the vault's door was a sign with a skull and crossbones and this dire warning: "This vault is protected by a device releasing chlorine gas under 200 pounds pressure. Enter it at your own risk." While Mr. Mencken's enthusiasm for alcohol-based fuels seems decidedly retro in our abstemious age, his decision to voluntarily give up his car had some solid logic behind it (and some useful implications for us today)

"See, at ESPN it's not just Bonds on Bonds. It's `SportsCenter' on Bonds, `Baseball Tonight' on Bonds and Pardon The Bonds. Next up, Vitale on Bonds." Bob Raissman New York Daily News columnist, on ESPN's excessive coverage of Barry Bonds "I think the old Phil would rely on those amazing moments to kind of vault him along in the tournament, eagles and chip-ins, skip the ball across the water. ... The way he manages his game now, he puts so much into preparing. He's finally found what works for him."

WE'LL BE WITH YOU shortly. We just need a moment to listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash and yes, Young, at their reunion concert at the Roosevelt Raceway in 1974. Only love can break your heart ... try to be sure from the start... And that's just the tip of the rock concert iceberg. Vault Radio, an Internet radio show, has made available to listeners tens of thousands of performance songs from what could be called the greatest era of popular music. Businessman Bill Sagan is keeper of legendary promoter Bill Graham's memorabilia -- and, more important, his audio and video archive of more than 5,000 concerts recorded between 1966 and 1999.

A bank teller manager from Odenton pleaded guilty in federal court in Greenbelt yesterday to embezzling more than $35,000. Theresa Williamson, 40, worked at Wachovia Bank in Laurel starting in 2002, according to court documents. Over two years, she transferred about $35,920 from a vault to her checking account, prosecutors said. The transactions generally involved between $1,000 and $2,000 each. She would create a "miscellaneous cash out ticket" for the amount she had taken to balance the bank's records, documents say. Because the bank rarely audited the vault, the crime was not discovered until an audit Sept.

ALSIP, Ill. - The earth above Emmett Till's grave was scraped away just after dawn yesterday, and steel cables hoisted his burial vault from the ground as family members prayed nearby. The barrel-topped concrete vault containing Till's metal casket was raised to a flatbed truck and covered in a blue tarp. Seven squad cars then escorted the remains on the 20-mile trip to Chicago, where forensics experts waited to see whether they would shed new light on a murder that helped ignite the civil rights movement.