Yoder

The search for a girl who disappeared yesterday while wading in a Garrett County river was expected to resume today, authorities said.A group of about 60 people searched without success yesterday for Violet Whismanat of Staten Island, N.Y.The girl was wading in the Youghiogheny River when she stepped off a rock and disappeared, said Gary Yoder, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.The 10-year-old girl does not know how to swim.Mr. Yoder said a man and a woman who were wading with the girl tried to rescue her.They told authorities they believe that she was swept down the river.

"The Historical Present," by Edwin Yoder. University of Mississippi Press. 223 pages. $25.From 1973 through 1975 it was my task and my pleasure to assemble a dozen journalists on four weekends during the academic year at Duke University along with several members of the faculty, all in an effort to examine how journalists went about their appointed rounds.I undertook the task with some diffidence for I had long sworn allegiance to the immortal line uttered by the late and great Eddie Lahey of the late and great Chicago Daily News: "Every good general reporter ought to have the depth of a one pound box of candy."

MECHANICSVILLE - Uria Yoder hunches over a notepad on a table in his kerosene-lit farmhouse and draws a circle representing Southern Maryland's Amish community. Next, the retired tobacco farmer scrawls a series of disjointed lines around the perimeter to illustrate the rest of the world. From Yoder's perspective, the circle remains symbolically unbroken - an enclave of 100 to 150 Old Order Amish families seemingly frozen in time, eschewing cars, electricity and e-mail, but managing to coexist with the faster-moving world encircling it. But he fears that new development may soon disrupt the fragile balance between cultures and push a number of Amish to leave the area.

On top of one of the small hills in Dayton sits a brick house that backs up to a wooded preserve. For Michael and Hilary Yoder, it's offered a quiet place to unwind, raise children and operate a lighting business. From the breakfast area by the kitchen, walls of windows look out to the forested area and the wildlife living there. Much of the year, the choice evening spot is a wet one outdoors. The lower tier of the deck has a hot tub that seats six, and the semi-rural location of the home provides a great view of the night sky. "We go in the hot tub almost every night just to look at the stars here.

Nathan Yoder fastened a chain around a 10-foot section of a log from a tree that had just been felled. With a tug on the leather reins, he spurred the team of Belgian draft horses into motion, dragging the heavy wood several hundred feet until it came to rest beside dozens of other logs.It is a scene that would not be surprising in the Amish country of Pennsylvania, where modern conveniences such as heavy machinery are frowned upon. But Mr. Yoder was working in suburban Baltimore County for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., helping to clear logs felled near Loch Raven Reservoir.

"Joe Alsop's Cold War: A Study of Journalistic Influence and Intrigue," by Edwin M. Yoder Jr. 220 pages. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. $24.95The day will soon be here, alas, when a child or two will turn to a parent and ask, "Mommy, what was a syndicated columnist?" Edwin Yoder's wise little book on Joseph Alsop, who plied that demanding trade - three columns a week when it mattered - can give a satisfying answer."Stopping Taft had become a top priority item on the columnists" agenda by early 1952,'Yoder writes of the brothers Alsop, Joseph and Stewart, during the campaign year when Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio and General Dwight D. Eisenhower contended for the Republican nomination.

The Yoder and Prigel families have worked for generations on adjoining dairy farms in northern Baltimore County, their cows sometimes grazing in each other's fields. Now, except for arguments made in legal proceedings, these Long Green neighbors are barely speaking, and the wrangling is taking a financial toll. "When I started this, I budgeted about $500 for legal fees," Bobby Prigel said. "I have spent well over $100,000." Their conflict centers on the creamery that Prigel has built - but has yet to open - at his Bellevale Farm and his plans to sell organic products made from the milk his cows produce.

In 1942, Julia Yoder, barely out of high school, took a bus to Baltimore from her home in the Pennsylvania mountains, rented a room at the YWCA and landed a job as a solderer at the Glenn L. Martin factory in Middle River. All within 24 hours. "It was not hard to get a job then," said Yoder, 77. "I made $36 a week and that was big money. And the Y was a treat - it had electricity and running water." Yoder, a Finksburg resident, reminisced at a Rosie reunion on Saturday at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

In 1942, Julia Yoder, barely out of high school, took a bus to Baltimore from her home in the Pennsylvania mountains, rented a room at the YWCA and landed a job as a solderer at the Glenn L. Martin factory in Middle River. All within 24 hours. "It was not hard to get a job then," said Yoder, 77. "I made $36 a week and that was big money. And the Y was a treat - it had electricity and running water." Yoder, a Finksburg resident, reminisced at a Rosie reunion Saturday at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

They sold Richard B. Porter's summers yesterday. When school ended each year for the longtime Anne Arundel County music teacher, family members remember him taking to the road searching for buried treasure. Porter hunted the ceramic, glass, metal or wooden knickknacks, wall hangings, furniture and pottery that hide among the shelves of the nation's arts and crafts shows. Porter's eclectic 30-year collection - ranging from ceramic squirrels to painted lengths of picket fence - became so large that when the 52-year-old Dickeyville resident died in April, family members were forced to decide how to deal with the 400 items he had amassed.