Yacht Club

Robert L. Rosenberger, a retired president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic-Southwestern Broom Co., died of cancer Thursday at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla. He was 75 and formerly lived in Hampstead. Mr. Rosenberger was born in Baltimore and raised in Govans. He was a City College graduate and served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, Mr. Rosenberger owned and operated a chain of dry cleaning establishments in the Baltimore area. In 1966, he went to work for the Atlantic-Southwestern Broom Co. It had been established in 1907 by his grandfather, August Rosenberger, in the 1300 block of Baylis St. in Canton.

Richard E. Fisher, a founder and former chairman of the board of Performance Inc., a Baltimore business forms distributorship, died of congestive heart failure Friday at Dorchester General Hospital. He was 76 and lived in Cambridge. Mr. Fisher was born and raised in Hampden and graduated from Polytechnic Institute in 1945. He enlisted as an aviation cadet in 1944 in the Army Air Forces and was discharged in 1946. He later attended the University of Baltimore and the Johns Hopkins University.

George J. Wallis, a retired engineering executive and a World War II veteran, died Wednesday of cancer at his Ocean Pines home. The former Timonium resident was 85. Born and raised in Greenfield, Mass., Mr. Wallis earned a degree in engineering from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. He learned to fly an airplane as a young man, and he joined General Claire Chennault's American Volunteer Group in a unit that flew supplies from Burma to China in 1941. As a result of this service, he was awarded British Royal Air Force Wings.

COME RAIN, sleet, snow, freezing temperatures and blustery winds, the Eastport Yacht Club Lights Parade, with as many as 80 festively lighted boats, has thrilled onlookers each December for 20 years, as it did Saturday. Only sustained high winds could keep the decorated boats from entertaining visitors and residents of Annapolis. And despite one year's close call, when 50-mph winds blasted the start of the parade, the Eastport Yacht Club's biggest event has never been called off. Thousands of people watch the parade from the Spa Creek bridge, Ego Alley, waterside restaurants, hotels, private homes, offices and boats.

The way Charlie Buckley tells it, Santa Claus came early to the Annapolis City Dock yesterday afternoon, carrying the centerpiece of his boat's Christmas display: an 8-foot-tall Grinch Who Stole Christmas. So what if it was really a 1983 Ford pickup trick, not a sleigh, with a driver named Alfred, not Santa? Christmas is about dreaming. And in Annapolis, it has come to be about boats, lights and decorations such as Buckley's painted Styrofoam bust of the Grinch, perched on the bow of his 38-foot Bayliner.

Robert Emmet Dunne, a retired banker and decorated combat Marine, died of diabetes Friday at his Annapolis home. He was 54. Mr. Dunne was born in New York City and raised in Arlington, Va. In 1965, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he earned his General Education Development degree. Wounded twice in combat while serving in Vietnam, Mr. Dunne was decorated with two Purple Hearts. His other decorations included two Good Conduct Medals, the National Defense Medal, the Vietnamese Service Medal, the Vietnamese Campaign Medal and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

Knut Jardar Aarsand, founder of a company that owns dozens of franchise restaurants and a yachtsman active in Annapolis-area charities, died of cancer Saturday at his Arnold home. He was 62. Mr. Aarsand was the founder and chairman of Aarsand Management. He developed his first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in 1982, and the company has grown to include 56 KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Born in Norway, he moved to the United States with his family as an infant and was raised in Tenafly, N.J. After graduating from Tenafly High School, he took up college studies in West Virginia, attending Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, and earning a bachelor of arts degree in history and English from Marshall University in Huntington.

Annapolis police have developed a preliminary sketch of an assailant in Thursday's fatal carjacking in the city's historic district, said Officer Hal Dalton, spokesman for the police. Straughan Lee Griffin, 51, was shot and run over outside his Cumberland Court home near the State House at about 7:30 p.m., but descriptions of the two young male attackers have remained vague. Dalton would not say how police artists put together the sketch, nor would he describe it. Police say they will not release the composite drawing until it is seen and verified by other witnesses, Dalton said.

Eight Annapolis detectives, assisted by two federal agencies and the county police, combed through evidence yesterday and urged the public to come forward with information that might lead to an arrest in Thursday's fatal carjacking in the city's historic district. Straughan Lee Griffin, 51, was shot once in the head and run over as two men, for whom police have vague descriptions, fled in his 2000 Jeep Cherokee. It was the first killing in the historic district in two decades. Despite the amount of staff assigned to the case, the dozen witnesses interviewed and the half-dozen tips called in during the weekend, police had no solid leads yesterday, said Officer Hal Dalton, a spokesman for the Annapolis Police Department.

Police searched for two men yesterday in a fatal carjacking in Annapolis' historic district - a crime that shocked nearby residents and merchants, and left friends and family mourning the loss of a man who had a "real love for life." Straughan Lee Griffin, 51, was shot in the head with a revolver outside his Cumberland Court home about 7:30 p.m. Thursday as he unloaded groceries on the secluded, picturesque street. The attackers then stole his sport utility vehicle and ran him over as they fled.