Ducks

Two ducks swim across Pangborn Park lake Tuesday at dusk.

Mothers and their children take time on Monday to feed the ducks at War Memorial Park in Martinsburg, W.Va.

By DON AINES / Staff Writer, Chambersburg photo: MIKE CRUPI / staff photographer [ enlarge ] GREENCASTLE, Pa. - Number 884 edged out a field of 1,250 competitors Sunday afternoon to win the Ninth Annual American Cancer Society Duck Derby Race at Martin's Mill Covered Bridge Park. The winning duck was bought for $5 by Richard Gutshall of Shippensburg, Pa., who will receive $500 from Citizens National Bank of Southern Pennsylvania. Connie Woodruff, executive director of the Franklin County (Pa.)

HAGERSTOWN - Competition for mates might have led to the deaths of at least two ducks recently at City Park, a parks supervisor said Thursday. According to Junior Mason, park superintendent for the City of Hagerstown, ducks occasionally die during mating season. "This time of year, they mate, and they're very violent with each other," Mason said. "It's because the males outnumber the females. " Most often, it is the females that die during mating, but sometimes males kill one another, Mason said.

Dariana Bivens, 3, feeds ducks Monday at Hagerstown's City Park.

Aaron Showe, 9, of Hagerstown, waves to the ducks Monday at snow-covered Rest Haven Cemetery on Pennsylvania Avenue in Hagerstown. Aaron and his family visit the ducks almost every week.

Bryan Bowers ducks and dodges balls Saturday during a dodgeball event at Chambersburg (Pa.) YMCA. His team is Forrester Farm Equipment. More photos at www.herald-mail.com .

Crystal McDaniel, center, feeds the ducks at Poor House Farm Park in Martinsburg, W.Va., on Tuesday with her neices, Kandi Snow, left, and Ashley Snow. Warm temperatures throughout the Tri-State area Tuesday prompted plenty of people to get outdoors.

By KERRY LYNN FRALEY Staff Writer BOONSBORO - Most of her classmates squealed with excitement as Ranger Mark Spurrier pulled the large boa constrictor out of a black duffel bag and wrapped it around his body. But Greenbrier Elementary School fifth-grader Kelly-Jo Kibler sat hugging her shoulders and grimacing while her peers jockeyed for a better view of the snake - nearly 6 feet long and as thick as a grapefruit. "They just kind of look bad to me," said Kelly-Jo, 11, who said she's afraid of all snakes.

HAGERSTOWN - Hundreds of children showed up Saturday at several events in Hagerstown to hunt Easter eggs and, in the process, steal every ounce of tranquility from the ducks at City Park. As children encircled a field full of Easter eggs before the hunt began, two ducks who waited too long to flee started to quack in fright. Just as the children began to move in, the ducks lifted off, dodging tree branches until they reached the safety of a nearby pond. Eric Boutieller, youth pastor at the Tri-State Fellowship on Cearfoss Pike, said about 575 children attended the sixth annual Great Egg Hunt at City Park.

Duck Manning, 72, of Hancock, died Saturday, Oct. 20, 2012, at his home. Services will be at the convenience of the family. Arrangements are by Grove Funeral Home, Hancock.

Most racers train. They adopt a strict workout regimen, monitor nutrition and take pains to stay on top of their mental game. Not so for the competitors Saturday in the Funkstown Volunteer Fire Co.'s duck race. These orange-billed contenders just chilled on the bridge until, at last, they were dumped into the water. Then, they floated with blank-eyed stares down Antietam Creek, occasionally bumping mindlessly into rocks or getting hung up on sticks. Though they were sponsored for five bucks a pop, they exhibited no sense of urgency or pressure.

I would have thought this worthy of front page news: Our resident Washington County lawmakers DON'T want to meet  with a local business group to discuss the recent legislative session. This has to be the first time on record that they've missed a chance back home to try to spin three months' worth of failure and neglect in Annapolis into statesmanship worthy of Winston Churchill.  Yet there you have it. State Sen. Chris Shank said the delegation doesn't want to face the Hagerstown Washington/County Chamber of Commerce this year because the organization's post-legislative wrapup breakfast is “not working.” And who would know more about not working than Shank, since Washington County's interests have basically been abandoned since his election to the Senate?

For the first time since the debut of the Federal Duck Stamp in 1934, the competition to choose 2012's edition will be held in West Virginia.   On Oct. 28 and 29, a panel of five judges at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's National Conservation Training Center near Shepherdstown will decide among 192 entries which species will grace next year's Duck Stamp. This year, competing artists were able to choose one of five species to paint - mallard, blue-winged teal, cinnamon teal, wood duck or gadwall, said Rachel F. Levin, spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife's migratory bird section, the division that runs the Duck Stamp program.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that the 2011 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest will be held at the agency's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, W. Va., Friday, Oct. 28 and Saturday, Oct. 29. This is the first time in the contest's 61-year history that the event has been held in West Virginia. The winning design chosen during the contest will be made into the 2012-2013 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, or "Duck Stamp," the cornerstone of one of the world's most successful conservation programs.

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Rep. Roscoe Bartlett has won the Republican nomination for a 10th term representing Maryland's 6th Congressional District, defeating Joseph Krysztoforski and three other candidates. He will face Andrew Duck in the general election. Duck, the 2006 nominee defeated Casey Clark in the Democratic primary Bartlett is the lone Republican member of the state's congressional delegation. He serves a mostly rural district encompassing western and northern Maryland.

Democrat Andrew Duck wasn't sure about trying a third time to defeat U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett in Maryland's 6th District. Then, people asked him to run again, he said. "Our country is in trouble and we need new representation in Washington," Duck said. Duck lost to Bartlett, a Republican, in the 2006 general election. In 2008, Jennifer Dougherty defeated Duck in a Democratic primary. Duck, 47, of Brunswick, Md., said his two previous campaigns have helped him get his name and message throughout the 6th District, which covers Washington County and parts or all of seven other counties.

FUNKSTOWN -- It's an event that makes a splash each year in Funkstown. People line the banks of Antietam Creek, wait for the horn to sound and cheer as more than 1,000 plastic ducks are dumped into the water from a bridge on Frederick Street. That was the case Saturday, when the Funkstown Volunteer Fire Co. sponsored its annual duck race. The event is a major fundraiser for the organization and a popular community event. "It's definitely more fun than most fundraisers," said Larry Iseminger, first vice president of the fire company.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The body of one of two missing Hungarians was recovered Friday from the Delaware River near where a 250-foot barge collided with a stalled amphibious sightseeing boat. A second body was later spotted during salvage operations but has not yet been recovered. A statement from Hungary's foreign ministry said U.S. authorities had reported that they had recovered the body of a female Hungarian citizen missing since Wednesday's accident. Sixteen-year-old Dora Schwendtner was one of two passengers.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Hope faded for finding two tour boat passengers alive Thursday, a day after the amphibious craft they were riding in was struck and sunk by a barge in the Delaware River, spilling them and other passengers into the murky waters, searchers said. A search for the missing duck boat passengers resumed in the morning near Philadelphia's Penn's Landing, with boats searching the surface and using sonar, but conditions were too dangerous to send divers underwater Thursday.