Herald Mail

With holiday specials and football games scheduled all day on TV and plenty of catching up to do with friends and relatives, there's usually no lack of activities on Thanksgiving. But if the TV becomes boring or you're all gabbed out, print out The Herald-Mail's “Thanksgiving Feast” game board and find a die to roll. You'll have some fun and learn a little about the harvest celebration shared in autumn of 1621 by the Puritan colonists and the Wampanoag Indians. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Herald-Mail is getting rid of its press equipment, but the company has no plans to move from its downtown building, Publisher Andy Bruns said this week. Instead, the company is interested in finding a tenant for the three-story, glass-enclosed space built to showcase the now-idle press, Bruns said. Since the end of March, The Herald-Mail has been printed on the press at The Frederick-News Post. Press removal began at the beginning of October and is expected to wrap up by the end of the year, Bruns said.

A Herald-Mail delivery car struck a utility pole on Frederick Street just north of Funkstown on Monday morning, Deputy First Class Jay Mills of the Washington County Sheriff's Office said. Nobody was injured, Mills said. The driver, who had been delivering newspapers overnight, was traveling southbound when the vehicle ran off the road and hit the utility pole, according to Mills. "There were still papers in the car when I got here," Mills said. Another Herald-Mail employee came by and picked the driver up, Mills said.

The Herald-Mail's Wisdom Expo will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, at Hagerstown Community College, Athletic Recreation Community Center (ARCC), off Robinwood Drive, east of Hagerstown.  It is free to the public and will feature educational and informative exhibitors from a variety of organizations and businesses that provide products and services to our community.

Andy Bruns, The Herald-Mail's new publisher, invited a breakfast crowd to fire away Wednesday morning - and they did. Hagerstown Mayor Robert E. Bruchey II asked about the newspaper's coverage of the city's attempt to build up downtown. He said he was told The Frederick News-Post championed Frederick's renaissance starting 30 years ago, but “we don't have that here.” Bruchey also asked Bruns about a recent Herald-Mail headline that a stabbing in the 300 block of North Jonathan Street, north of Franklin Street, happened “downtown.” He said it was inaccurate and feeds into a negative image of downtown.

The Herald-Mail business office will be closed Monday in observance of the Labor Day holiday. The office will reopen Tuesday at 8 a.m. The Herald-Mail will publish Monday.

Upon Herald-Mail Publisher John League’s retirement at the end of July, Andy Bruns, publisher of the Daily American in Somerset, Pa., will become group publisher for the two news companies, parent company Schurz Communications Inc. announced Monday. Bruns will be based at The Herald-Mail, said Charles V. Pittman, senior vice president of Schurz Communications, which owns The Herald-Mail and the Daily American. “Andy has been very successful as publisher of the Daily American,” Pittman said, calling Bruns innovative, creative and results-driven, with a good grasp of how to drive revenue and control costs.

Birthdays Today — Connor Staubs, Hagerstown, turns 6; Morgan Strait, Buck Valley, Pa., turns 16. • If you would like a milestone to appear in The Herald-Mail, email the information to tonym@herald-mail.com , mail it to Milestones, The Herald-Mail Co., P.O. Box 439, Hagerstown MD 21741 or fax it to 301-714-0245 two weeks in advance.

The Herald-Mail family lost two longtime members of the newsroom last October. Former Daily Mail Sports Editor Larry Yanos and former reporter Marlo Barnhart passed away. Last week, their names came up on two different occasions as I went through my normal routine. First, I received a call from Rick Schultz with the Washington County Sports Hall of Fame. He said the Hall of Fame was having trouble locating any relatives associated with one of this year's inductees. The Hall of Fame is looking for family members of the late Dave Kuhn, who graduated from Hagerstown High School in 1953 and Virginia Tech four years later.