Gathering

Grace McMahon, 4, of Cearfoss gathers potatoes Saturday morning during the eighth annual Spud Fest at the Washington County Agricultural Education Center.

Maryland Fur Trappers invites the public to its annual convention in Fairplay on Aug. 19 and 20. Some of the activities will be: Friday, Aug. 19, starting a 6 p.m. - Steamed crab feast, bluegrass music by the Steven's Family and visit from Miss Maryland. Saturday, Aug. 20, starting at 7 a.m. - Breakfast, trapping demonstrations, live auction, trap supply dealers; food and drinks all day, serving pit beef, ham and barbecue chicken It will be at Tilghmanton Ruritan Park in Fairplay, five miles south of Hagerstown off Sharpsburg Pike.

Art teachers Alyssa Scott from Boonsboro Elementary School and Kelsi Dean from Bester Elementary School have had students writing to each other as pen pals this school year and celebrated the series of exchanges with a meeting between the two groups May 24 at Hagerstown City Park. Part of the exercise has been to provide a glimpse into the lives of children their age who live in a different part of Washington County. The students from each school created a quilt, which were exchanged at the gathering.

Dave Neff and Gary Horchner were hard at work Tuesday splitting firewood along Lappans Road.

Green Drinks Hagerstown will host a gathering on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22, to rally support for action to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. The Hagerstown event is at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Duffy's on Potomac, 28 S Potomac St., Hagerstown. There will be complimentary appetizers and a cash bar. Admission is free, the public is invited and no reservations are required. The group will write letters to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson asking the EPA to enforce the Clean Water Act for the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay. Green Drinks started in London in 1989.

o On the Web: http://720gathering.com CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. -- Several thousand people filled the stadium at Chambersburg Area Senior High School on Sunday evening for the second annual 720 Gathering, an event that asks people from many denominations to offer prayerful requests to God. Among them were requests for families, government, education, health-care providers and healing. Mark Durniak, a pastor at World Harvest Outreach, expected the prayer for business and economy to touch a lot of people.

Earth Day shouldn't just be about "green, green, green," said Stephanie Unger, organizer of the annual Panhandle Earth Day Celebration on Saturday at Morgans Grove Park. "It should be more of a celebration of the earth," she said. Her thoughts run to a community type gathering with music, good food and vendors promoting a variety of save-the-earth-themed homegrown produce and homemade everything from cotton diapers from the Rosebud Diaper Boutique with its "Go Cloth, Go Green" slogan, to Space Lotus Studio's T-shirts and tapestries that have been "tied and dyed with love," cotton puppets and Journalistic Tendencies' notepads made from recycled paper.

BEAVER CREEK - They scampered and barked, nuzzled and played, totally unaware that they were making canine history. But the 45 or so Icelandic sheepdogs gathered Saturday on Elisabet Stacy-Hurley's Beaver Creek property represented the largest gathering of the breed in U.S. history, organizers said. The gathering was part of a series of events scheduled throughout the country to mark the Icelandic Sheepdog Association of America's 10-year anniversary. The United States has only 600 to 700 Icelandic sheepdogs, said ISAA President Knox Rhine, who traveled from his home in Newton, Kan., for the event.

Kenneth “Boogie” Martin Hawes, 55, died Saturday April 28, 2012. A gathering will be Saturday, May 5, 2012, at 6 p.m. at the home of Michael and Julie Hawes, 705 Prentiss Point Parkway, Martinsburg, W.Va.

Mary Jane “Nanie” Funk Simmers, 78, of 5656 Tick Ridge Road in Waynesboro, Pa., died Thursday, June 2, 2011, at her home. A celebration of her life and informal gathering will be Monday at 5 p.m. at Pen Mar Park, Cascade. Burial will be private. Arrangements are by Grove-Bowersox Funeral Home, Waynesboro.

The Washington County branches of Susquehanna Bank and its loan center recently held a two-week pet supply fund drive for the Humane Society of Washington County Inc. The donations filled delivery vehicles to the brim. On April 30, branch managers presented the donations to Mike Lausen, executive director of the humane society.

Ayako Shiga, Washington County Teacher of the Year and member of the Boonsboro High School faculty, spoke to the Rotary Club of Long Meadows on April 22. Shiga, who teaches Japanese, is a native of Tokyo. During her speech she explained that as a high school student she competed and qualified for a spot in the Rotary Youth Exchange student program. The Rotary program brought her to the United States and she enjoyed the experience to the degree that she decided to make the U.S. her new home.

Mildred Hays never set out to make it to 100 years old. But then, as a mother of 10 children and widowed in her mid-30s, she didn't have much time to think about it. “I was just doing everyday living,” she said. “But I'm thankful to be 100.” Hays hit that milestone April 28, and on Saturday, about 160 family members gathered at Virginia Avenue Church of God to celebrate with her. Many were locals, while others traveled from Montana, Massachusetts, Michigan and Florida.

One Mountain Foundation will hold the inaugural Gathering of the Arts at Lake Royer show at Lakeside Hall on the former Fort Ritchie Army base in Cascade. The event will take place Saturday, Sept. 7, from 6 to 9 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 8, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The show will feature two- and three-dimensional art. The Saturday event will be an opening of the two-day show with a reception for the artists. Saturday's admission costs $20, and will include wine, coffee, tea and light fare.

One hundred days after the second-deadliest school shooting in United States history, community members gathered at the Boonsboro Free Library on Thursday to sign a petition advocating universal background checks for firearm sales. Hosted by public advocacy group Organizing for Action, close to 150 petition-signing events occurred throughout the country Thursday, according to Carlotta Joyner, Western Maryland chapter director. “We're part of this nationwide effort to make the public aware and make congress aware that there's some common-sense legislation that we think is needed,” Joyner said, noting approximately 1,900 people have been killed by a gun since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Ray Snouffer, artist, docent and instructor at Washington County Museum of Fine Arts and avid collector of 19th century American art, recently spoke at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts.  His program to the Singer Society, the volunteer association of the museum, was about  19th century American artist Thomas Worthington Whittredge.  Whittredge, a contemporary with John Frederick Kensett, Albert Bierstadt and Frederick Church, is...

The I-81 Corridor Coalition will hold its spring conference March 24 to 26 at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Hagerstown. Approximately 150 people are expected to attend.  Founded in 2007, the coalition is a partnership of local, regional and state organizations that are all interested in transportation planning. The coalition includes local governments, metropolitan planning organizations and state transportation departments, as well as private sector and nonprofit organizations.

We are in for a treat. The Conservative Political Action Conference has scheduled a three-day (March 14-16) convention in Washington, D.C. They have provided a list of conservative speakers with the name recognition and experience to set a lively agenda. Included are Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum. Sarah Palin was mentioned as a speaker in 2012. As I survey this list of political luminaries, I am struck by the number of losers as well as those who were not invited to stand behind the lectern.

In 2009, the Jefferson County Commission approved a  Shepherdstown Town Council request for $38,000 toward a $76,000 match needed to apply for a grant to build a half-mile biking/hiking path to Morgan's Grove Park. The grant was denied, but Shepherdstown is trying again. The estimated cost of the project is $539,000. The town's share is a 20 percent matching grant of $107,000. Last week, the Jefferson County Commission voted to give the town $75,000 toward the match, leaving the town's share at $32,000, Town Recorder Lori Robertson said.

Local resident Jane Fishack Berlin recently celebrated her 90th birthday at a dinner held in her honor. Family and friends gathered Jan. 20 at the Olive Garden restaurant near Valley Mall to commemorate her day and recognize her years of love and devotion to others. Jane is the proud and loving mother of four children, 10 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson. Over the years, she has provided day care and in-home baby-sitting services in both Waynesboro, Pa., and Hagerstown.  Altogether, she has baby-sat for more than 30 years touching the lives of more than 30 children.