|
Terri Mullican's kindergartners at Bester Elementary School watched as she shared the daily mail. Included were postcards from around the world sent to the students. (File photo / December 31, 2012) |
Oct. 13 — Images of the old Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which had faded with time, were resurrected in 2012.
The 2.7-mile section of the towpath known as Big Slackwater was closed after flooding in 1996 and it deteriorated into a treacherous ridge overrun with brambles, thistles and poisonous plants.
Towpath visitors were detoured off the trail and onto a dangerous route with no shoulders following 4.5 miles along Dam 4, Dellinger and Avis Mill roads.
Two years ago, the National Park Service determined that during a five-year period, there were 35 accidents along the detour that resulted in someone being taken to a hospital.
So the crowd was enthusiastic Oct. 13 when community members and dignitaries gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the $19 million completion of the Big Slackwater restoration and the reopening of the stretch of path.
Among those recognized at the ceremony was Tom Perry of Williamsport, who for years advocated for the restoration of the towpath section near Williamsport through his work with the C&O Canal Association and the Big Slackwater Restoration Committee.
Goods were transported along the canal from Georgetown to Cumberland from during the mid-1880s to the early 1900s.
The canal ceased operations in 1924, ending the passage of the cargo boats that had glided up and down the waterway.
In May, boat activity on the canal resumed when National Park Service officials unveiled a launch boat to provide rides on the canal. The launch boat was built for the canal and taken to Williamsport last April for a test.
Also in May, canal officials started offering free rides on the boat, which extended until Labor Day, said Curt Gaul, West District ranger for the C&O Canal National Historical Park.
Gaul said in a recent interview that more than 15,000 people took advantage of the rides and the National Park Service plans to continue offering the rides in 2013.
The introduction of the boat came as Williamsport town officials and park officials were working on ways to capitalize on tourism associated with the C&O Canal.
— Dave McMillion
Queen’s sneakers
May 3 — Curious about the footwear of the British monarch, a kindergarten class at Bester Elementary School in Hagerstown wrote a letter in May to Queen Elizabeth II as part of its Around the World project. The queen did not reply, but her lady-in-waiting did.
“We wanted to see if she ever wears sneakers,” said Angel Lease of Hagerstown, who was a kindergarten student at the time. “She does wear them.”
The queen’s lady-in-waiting’s response included a picture of Queen Elizabeth astride a horse. On her feet were a pair of sneakers.
The class’ teacher at the time, Terri Mullican, said the idea to write the letter came after she read a story to her class about a queen who was mean because her heels were too tight.
“Their letter to the queen asked her if she wore sneakers, and if her feet hurt while walking around the palace,” Mullican said. “The lady-in-waiting didn’t actually comment on the question but she sent us the picture, and we are convinced that the queen saw it.”
The letter was part of a project in which students study and learn about different countries and cultures worldwide. Through word of mouth, Mullican and her students used international contacts they had to receive letters and postcards from people around the world.
A global employee at Energizer Battery was among the contacts, and Mullican said that contact “contacted people that she knew, and they sent mail from where they lived.”
“Basically, what happened was one person sent a letter, and they told somebody else, and they sent us mail,” she said. “It just took off.”
The class even sent an email to a newspaper in Antarctica and was able to hook up with a scientist in McMurdo Station, a U.S. research center there. The scientist sent letters and pictures from Antarctica.
— Caleb Calhoun
Paralympic athlete
May 9 — Kari Miller, a paralympic sitting volleyball player who lost both her legs in a 1999 car accident involving a drunken driver, spoke to employees at Citi in Hagerstown in May, one of many stops on the Citi Team USA Flag Raising Tour she went on as part of the financial institution’s Team USA sponsorship.
“Being disabled only means that you have to find another way of doing all the things that you want to do,” Miller said at the time. “I know I lost my legs, but at least now I can be as tall as I want to be.”
Miller, 35, competed on the U.S. Paralympic sitting volleyball teams that won silver medals in Beijing, China in 2008 and in London, England in 2012.
She said in May that she did not know what happened to the drunken driver who injured her in the accident that claimed the life of the driver of the car in which she was riding. But she expressed sympathy for him.
“Imagine having killed someone. He has to live with that every day, and I have this great life,” she said. “Some of us have made that mistake in having a couple drinks. I know I have, I’m not going to lie. I’m no angel.”
After speaking to the Citi employees, Miller, a former member of the U.S. Army, an ambassador for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Paralympic Military and Veteran Program, and a participant in Citi’s U.S. Olympic and Paralympic sponsorship program called Every Step of the Way, went outside and raised a Citi Team USA flag that was expected to stay up throughout the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
— Caleb Calhoun
The Ritchie Boys
June 19 — About two dozen former “Ritchie Boys” made a triumphant return to Camp Ritchie near Cascade.
The men who were the Ritchie Boys were primarily German Jews who fled to the United States before World War II to escape Nazi persecution. Recognizing their foreign language skills could be used as an asset, the Army sent them to Camp Ritchie to be trained in psychological warfare.
An estimated 20,000 Ritchie Boys received training at the camp from July 1942 to September 1945. Then they were sent to the European Theater to develop propaganda leaflets and interrogate prisoners of war.
Now in their late 80s and early 90s, some of The Ritchie Boys who attended the June reunion walked with canes, while others struggled to hear.
Guy Stern said that 70 years ago, he wasn’t allowed to set foot inside the officers club at Camp Ritchie.
But he was welcomed during this year’s reunion as a returning hero.
“I was a buck private,” the 90-year-old Stern said as he stood on the front steps of a restaurant that during World War II served as the officers club. “This is the first time I’ve been allowed inside.”
— Dan Dearth
Korean War memorial
June 26 — Local Korean War veterans broke ground for a memorial with the hope that people would no longer refer to the conflict as “The Forgotten War.”
About 70 people, most of them members of Antietam Chapter 312 of the Korean War Veterans Association, gathered for the ceremony at Mealey Parkway in Hagerstown. Many of the octogenarians wore oxygen masks and hearing aids.
The veterans said there was an urgency to build the monument because their numbers were dwindling with age.
Wayne Winebrenner, a past commander of the Antietam chapter and vice chairman of the organization’s monument committee, said immediately after the ceremony that the project started as a dream in October 2010.
He said the estimated cost of the monument initially was $70,000, but the veterans increased that amount to $100,000 to pay for maintenance after the memorial is finished around June 2013.
The Korean War — or “The Forgotten War” as it is sometimes called — started June 25, 1950, when communist forces from North Korea invaded South Korea.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 33,739 Americans died as the result of hostilities during the war, and 103,284 were wounded. Roughly 1.8 million Americans served in the Korean theater of operations.
Among other things, the 60 members of Antietam Chapter 312 award an annual $500 college scholarship and visit local schools to educate students about the war.
— Dan Dearth
Inmates train dogs
July 2 — A program began at Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown in July through which inmates at the facility train service dogs for wounded and disabled military veterans.
Terry Dorsey, 48, a former veteran who at the time had been incarcerated at MCI-H since 2002, was taking part in the program then and said it was a way for him to make an impact on people’s lives.
“It’s something I could do to give back,” he said. “I grew up with dogs, and a dog’s always going to show you affection.”
Through the program inmates are allowed to train and work with the dogs during the day, and the dogs sleep in kennels at night.
The program, America’s VetDogs, teamed up with Maryland’s prison agency.
Dan Lasko, 29, a former U.S. Marine, was in Afghanistan in 2004, when he lost his leg in an explosion. He had a dog named Wally that he received in 2008.
“My life wasn’t put back together until Wally,” he said then. “He’s my battle buddy. We have each other’s backs now.”
Lasko said Wally helped him physically and emotionally.
The inmates help train the dogs for 14 months before they go to a permanent owner. During that time, they are taken home on weekends to foster families so they can experience family life, according to Sheila O’Brien, director of external relations at America’s VetDogs.
— Caleb Calhoun
Antietam 150th commemoration
September — Battles often occur as a result of a series of maneuvers, missteps and accidents that result in two opposing forces clashing, but anniversaries take planning.
About two years of planning went into events at Antietam National Battlefield in observance of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, battlefield Chief Ranger Ed Wenschhof said prior to the anniversary.
In addition to events at the battlefield, there were at a separate site re-enactments and living history events that drew both re-enactors, other participants and observers.
All were commemorating the 150th anniversary of America’s bloodiest day — Sept. 17, 1862.
During the day-long Battle of Antietam, more than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, taken prisoner or were missing.
At the battlefield, the Park Service brought in historians, authors, lecturers and living historians for days of events. Those making presentations included the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of “Battle Cry of Freedom” James McPherson and author and former National Park Service historian Ed Bearss.
A remembrance ceremony was held on Sept. 17, during which the names of all the soldiers killed or mortally wounded during the battle were read aloud.
In the days before the anniversary observance, there were re-enactments, with thousands of Union and Confederate re-enactors — including artillery and cavalry units — firing off tens of thousands of rounds of blank ammunition and generating clouds of blue-gray smoke. One was held at the Boonsboro Town Farm and the second at Legacy Manor Farm, both within a few miles of the battlefield.
A number of other events were held at various locations in the weeks and days leading up to the anniversary, including at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and South Mountain State Battlefield.
— Don Aines
