Construction Site

WILLIAMSPORT - Like most other high school seniors, Atalaya Taylor heads to school each morning. But unlike her peers, she leaves Washington County Technical High School and goes to a construction site. Atalaya, 17, is working with her classmates in carpentry and electrical construction to build a house. It is the second she has built through the program at the technical high school. It is the 18th home being built by students at the high school. The house on Custer Court in Williamsport is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom rancher with a two-car garage.

Lightning strike blamed in house fire CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - A lightning strike during a fast-moving thunderstorm is believed to be the cause of a house fire Thursday afternoon, according to Chambersburg acting Emergency Services Chief William Dubbs. The 911 call came in as the storm rolled through the borough, but Dubbs said he would call in a Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal to confirm the cause of the 5 p.m. fire at the home of Robert and Jane Wingerd at 902 Edgar Ave. The fire was contained to a room in the third-floor finished attic, although firefighters had to cut through the wood shingle roof and the ceiling inside to get to it to put it out, Dubbs said.

HAGERSTOWN - In an exhausting half-hour chase Thursday after an escaped miniature horse, a Washington County Sheriff's Department deputy had his share of close calls, watching and wincing as the gelding stopped traffic, jumped guardrails and galloped in and out of his sight. With help from a couple of Huntzberry Brothers Inc. workers, Deputy 1st Class Tom Routzahn finally caught up to Giddy-up, a young gray-and-white miniature horse, at a Hagers Crossing construction site near the Centre at Hagerstown, about six miles from the horse's home in the 15200 block of National Pike.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A shooting victim who was treated early Wednesday in Martinsburg with face and upper arm injuries is being investigated in connection with a shooting that might have occurred during an attempted burglary in Berkeley County, city police said Thursday. Martinsburg City Police responded to a call from City Hospital for an 18-year old Martinsburg resident who was being treated for a gunshot wound. The man later was transferred to Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center, police said.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - A front-end loader shoved the roof off a concession stand Monday afternoon as demolition began on the $6.8 million reconstruction of Trojan Stadium at Chambersburg Area Senior High School. With the students on break Monday it was "mobilization day" for the job, Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Richard Bender said. Contractors brought in temporary security fences and construction trailers, and began to tear down things at the stadium. The stadium will remain a construction site for the rest of the school year and through the summer before it is scheduled to reopen for the fall soccer and football seasons.

FREDERICK, Md. - The death of a Frederick man is being investigated as a homicide, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday. The body of David Lee Stull, 45, of Frederick, was found Monday morning on a construction site at 6298 Linganore Road in Frederick, police said. Workers at the site, which is in a residential area in the Whispering Creek subdivision, found the body, said Jennifer Bailey said. Police know the cause of the man's death, but declined to release that information Tuesday, saying it would jeopardize the investigation, she said.

WASHINGTON COUNTY tarar@herald-mail.com It might look like dirt, but the Hagerstown Regional Airport calls it soil. Whatever the correct term, truckloads of it have been making up a large part of the airport's runway extension project for more than a year. C. William Hetzer Inc. has been hauling the material daily from the 40 West Landfill to Hagerstown Regional Airport since spring of 2004. "They don't call it soil," Commissioner Doris J. Nipps said of airport officials.