Western Maryland

On Palm Sunday morning, the Rev. Jim Hannon awoke at 5:30, prayed and then exercised on a treadmill for 20 minutes. By 7:30, the priest was set for a day of ministry in Western Maryland. That's when the real workout began. The 55-year-old Hannon pastors six churches in Allegany and Garrett counties, the result of a priest shortage that the Archdiocese of Baltimore faces in Maryland's westernmost jurisdictions. The number of priests in the region, on the decline for years, has dwindled further since 2004, from 14 to 10. As Catholic churches throughout the world celebrate Holy Week, the sacred - and busy - period on the Christian liturgical calendar, Hannon's road-warrior routine has become even more frenetic.

Lorraine Wells was about to give up. More than 10 years of searching for clues about the now-deceased father she never knew while growing up in Cumberland had produced nothing. Then the 46-year-old Oakland, Calif., resident got a call from her brother Jeffrey, who lives in Cumberland, about a Web site that chronicles Western Maryland's black history. The Allegany County African American History collection comprises more than 400 images, includes information dating back 200 years - and was created by an amateur historian who happens to be white.

John Roth stood on a mist-shrouded ridge above the Western Maryland farm where his grandfather first plowed the rocky soil in 1892. Beside him, a wind-speed gauge spun on a pole. It is here, atop one of the state's highest places - Roth Rock, named after his family - that a developer wants to build Maryland's first wind farm. The $75 million, 20-turbine Roth Rock Wind Power Project could bring Roth, 69, enough money to retire and keep the farm where he and his father were born. But it has also made Roth a lightning rod for criticism in Garrett County, which is roiled by an intense debate over the merits of wind power.

Maryland's manufacturing industry continued to shrink over the past year, shedding 3,856 jobs and 114 manufacturers during the 12 months ended in May 2006, according to a company that tracks its comings and goings. Many of the job losses can be attributed to new technology and outsourcing, said Tom Dubin, president of Evanston, Ill.-based Manufacturers' News Inc., which has conducted an annual survey of the industry since 1912. "Manufacturing output is as high as ever," Dubin said. "Companies are leaner and meaner these days."

Reacting to concerns of elected officials in Western Maryland, the O'Malley administration announced yesterday that it is changing the way inmates are released from state prisons. Most inmates in the rural prisons in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore are from the Baltimore-Washington metro area. When an inmate's sentence ends, he is given $50 in cash and dropped off at a bus station. Under the new policy, corrections officials say, inmates will be transported to a prison in Baltimore or one closer to their home community a day or so before discharge.

John E. "Jack" Molesworth, former executive director of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association and a Western Maryland College football coach, died Friday at Frederick Memorial Hospital of complications from a fall. He was 80. Mr. Molesworth was born in Baltimore and raised on his family's Frederick County farm. After graduating from Frederick High School in 1944, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and served with the 2nd Marine Division in occupied Japan. In 1948, Mr. Molesworth enrolled at Western Maryland College, where he played center for the Green Terrors football team and boxed.

Akron (5-2) at Navy (2-4)Site: Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, AnnapolisTime: NoonRadio: WNAV (1430 AM), WJFK (1300 AM), WMAL (630 AM)Series record: Navy leads 1-0Outlook: Akron is having its best season in seven years and figures to be a tough test for a Navy team coming off a bye week. The Midshipmen will be almost at full strength for their homecoming attraction, which they haven't lost since 1994. The Zips presented a balanced attack in last week's romp over Bowling Green, running for 263 yards and passing for 267. QB James (Butchie)

Lauren Martin and Kris Brust, basketball teammates the last two seasons at Glenelg, will see each other in a different light the next four years.They'll be on opposing teams playing in the Centennial Conference.Martin, last season's county Player of the Year and first-team All-Metro pick, will attend Johns Hopkins University. Brust, an All-County first-team pick and second-team All-Metro selection, has selected Western Maryland.Both players received financial aid packages. Division III colleges do not give out athletic money.

The modern farm has computers, satellites and biotechnology, none of which can produce the one thing it needs most: rain. And because farmers in central and western Maryland generally don't irrigate, this spring's drought has hit hard.While they can't make it rain, government officials and farmers are working together to limit the drought's impact, said Cone Byler-Hsu, a program manager with the Maryland office of the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.There are some ways to deal with drought, extension agents say, such as planting short-season varieties of corn and soybeans, but it can be a gamble if the whole season is dry.Those who plant corn and soybeans to feed their cattle have to consider options such as feeding more hay, but that has the drawback of reducing milk production, and therefore, income.

Kim Brown's running jump shot with 4.2 seconds remaining capped a comeback from a 16-point deficit as UMBC beat host St. Francis, N.Y., 58-56 last night in the Northeast Conference.The Retrievers (11-12, 9-8) trailed 39-23 with 14: 36 left in the second half when they went on a 26-8 run to take a 49-47 lead.The lead changed hands six times before redshirt freshman Jazmine Rhodes of the Terriers (8-14, 7-9) made the second of two free-throw attempts with 12 seconds left to tie the score at 56, setting up Brown's heroics.

An Oklahoma-based energy company has applied for the first permits to drill for natural gas in Marcellus shale deposits in Western Maryland, the state Department of the Environment said Thursday. MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said state regulators are reviewing applications from Samson Resources Co. of Tulsa to drill at four sites in Garrett County. When the department determines that the applications are complete, the state will notify adjacent property owners and the public and invite comments and requests for a hearing.

State public health officials said Thursday that six more people have died in Maryland in the past four weeks of swine flu, bringing the number of deaths statewide since the pandemic began to 19. All six were adults with underlying health conditions. Three were from the Baltimore area, two were from Western Maryland and one was from Southern Maryland. No further details were provided by the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. So far, 664 people have been hospitalized in Maryland as a result of the H1N1 virus.

WASHINGTON -The enormous federal stimulus program is delivering billions of dollars across Maryland in uneven waves, a Baltimore Sun analysis shows, with some struggling areas faring better than others. Parts of the state have benefited from Washington's desire to spend money quickly, with ready-to-go projects collecting early infusions of money. And Maryland as a whole has come out ahead, thanks in part to long-term investments in science and education that are a major part of the stimulus law. Government officials say recovery aid has been targeted to places with the greatest need, and for the most part that appears to be the case.

Two recent travel guides highlight not only places we wish to visit, but the very places where we live: Baltimore and Maryland. Here's our take on the books: 'Moon Handbooks: Baltimore' Avalon, $17.95: Baltimore often is called an underrated city. As the former Colonial trading port continues to evolve, it has begun attracting more visitors. Local author Geoff Brown nicely describes it as a Southern city in character but a Northern city in geography. "It's a town of society teas and horse races," he writes, "raucous street festivals and experimental music, and oddball characters and living legends."

A wind farm proposed in mountainous Western Maryland that proponents say could be the first to be built in the state got an airing Wednesday before state regulators, where it ran into increasingly familiar turbulence from some residents concerned about safety and environmental effects. Synergics Wind Energy wants to erect up to 20 turbines atop Backbone Mountain near Oakland in Garrett County. Wayne Rogers, chairman of the Annapolis-based company, said he's ready to start construction in the spring, assuming the state Public Service Commission gives the more than $50 million project the green light.

A 10th person in Maryland has died of swine flu, state health officials said Tuesday. The person, an adult from Western Maryland, had underlying health problems. As with other deaths related to the H1N1 virus, officials would not release further details. Since the outbreak of the virus in the spring, 217 people in Maryland have been hospitalized and two children have died, one of them a 14-year-old girl with no underlying health problems. Nationwide, 81 children have died of the swine flu, according to figures released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hear a name often enough, and you won't think twice about it. But that doesn't change the fact that Maryland has some oddly named places. Accident, for instance. Or Boring. Or Bivalve. I wonder if a strange name keeps people from moving in. I'd like to think it instead attracts residents who like a little whimsy in their lives, or at least their mailing addresses. Accident, in Western Maryland, does not appear to be named after a disaster. Historian Mary Miller Strauss writes in "Flowery Vale," a history of Accident, that it's impossible to say for sure, but she believes a story about land speculation.

What exactly happened to Maxwell C. Byers, president of the Western Maryland Railway, who was gunned down in a spectacular noontime murder on Sept. 23, 1930, in his fifth-floor office in the Standard Oil Building on St. Paul Place? His murder, nearly eight decades later, still haunts his family. "It's unbelievable. It's like his entire family was placed under a gag order," said a grandson, Dr. Robert Maxwell Byers, 72, a retired Houston surgeon, who is determined to get to the bottom of the case.

HAGERSTOWN - -There were two different town hall meetings in Western Maryland on Wednesday afternoon, but Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin only made it to one of them. That was his question-and-answer session in a packed Hagerstown auditorium. It included loud, red-faced rants by angry voters who wanted the Democratic lawmaker to know that they don't trust him or, for that matter, believe a word that he says. But there was another civic gathering, too, which took place just outside and got little media attention.

2 mids report assaults during training assignments Two female U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen have reported being sexually assaulted while away on summer training assignments. The Navy Criminal Investigative Service is investigating both cases. No charges have been filed. An academy spokesman, Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, said one case involves a sophomore who made the report in June in Norfolk, Va. Carpenter said the accused isn't a midshipman. In the other case, Carpenter said, a junior reported being sexually assaulted in July.