Museum Board

Hello! Welcome to 2009. Well, the holidays are behind us now, the kids are back in school and routines are getting back to normal. Cooking demo set for Thursday The Women's Club will host a cooking demonstration by Chef John Walla of Black Eyed Susan Restaurant Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the club at 31 S. Prospect St. in Hagerstown. Admission is $12 and payment will be accepted at the door. Reservations are appreciated and can be made by calling the club at 301-739-0870.

wandaw@herald-mail.com HAGERSTOWN - As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Joseph Ruzicka was on the road to becoming a doctor. "I never intended to go into art history," Ruzicka said. "I was on a pre-med track. Then one year, I took a Renaissance to modern art class and that was it. " The "it" was an insatiable desire to pursue a professional career in art history and museum work. Looking back on his life, Ruzicka said his early childhood also played a role in his decision to switch career paths.

County gives $10K to airport expo The Washington County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to provide $10,000 from the county's hotel-motel tax fund toward the Hagerstown Aviation Museum's Wings and Wheels expo planned for this weekend at Hagerstown Regional Airport. The expo, a fundraiser for the museum, will include exhibits of aircraft, cars, trucks, motorcycles and other transportation equipment.  In a presentation to the commissioners in support of the request, Thomas B. Riford, president of the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Hagerstown Aviation Museum President John Seburn said the two-day event on Saturday and Sunday would attract out-of-town exhibitors and attendees who would stay in local hotels.

ANNAPOLIS - U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., made an 11th-hour appeal to Maryland's governor and House speaker Thursday to help stop demolition of the Hagerstown Roundhouse. [cont. from news page ] Bartlett admitted, however, that a proposal to save the roundhouse has only a 50-50 chance of being approved. To silence the bulldozers, the state would have to take over the property and exempt CSX, the owner of the roundhouse complex, from liability against future lawsuits stemming from possible underground contamination, Bartlett said.

Marguerite Doleman didn't set out to create a museum of African-American history. In 1974, a student from North Hagerstown High School asked her to put together a display for Black History Week. "It was only supposed to be for two weeks," said her son, Charles "Sonny" Doleman. But there was an appetite for history within the black community. And so what had begun as a small exhibit on the Doleman family's dining room table began to grow to fill her Locust Street home. Her son, who used a basement room as a playroom, was asked to give it up so she could store more things temporarily.

The Williamsport Town Council on Monday approved a more than $2.7 million fiscal 2002-03 budget. There are no tax rate increases in the budget. The personal property tax rate remains at $1 per $100 of accessed value, and the real estate tax rate remains at 40 cents per $100 of accessed value, Town Clerk Donna K. Spickler said. The $154,000 allotted for police services in the budget includes nearly $60,000 for an additional town deputy. It is unlikely the deputy would begin work in Williamsport the fiscal year beginning July 1 because the Washington County Sheriff's Department might need to hire and train an additional officer, Councilman Tim Ammons has said.

By JULIE E. GREENE Staff Writer Hagerstown City Council members have rejected a proposal to hire an architect to design facade improvements for a downtown, city-owned building. The council on Tuesday night rejected the proposal by Mayor Steven T. Sager by a 3-2 vote. Councilman William Breichner said there's no point in having the design work done before city officials know what use the 38 S. Potomac St. building will be put to. "Let the future owner decide what to do with it," Breichner said Wednesday.

GREENCASTLE, Pa. -- Changes coming for Allison-Antrim Museum in Greencastle include a new site manager, regular hours of operation and structural completion of the barn restoration project. The museum will now be open from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, as well as the second Sunday of most months. David Dick, of Chambersburg, has been hired and will be on-site during the week through funds from the PathStone organization. Museum officials are gearing up to start the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning portion of a project that involved dismantling and rebuilding a mid-19th-century German bank barn on-site.

City seeks members to serve on ethics committee The city is ready to hear from people who want to help review its municipal ethics code. Hagerstown City Council members said Tuesday that people can apply to be on a committee. Councilman Forrest Easton said he has received several e-mails from people inquiring about the process. Applications should be sent to City Clerk Donna K. Spickler, who can be reached by e-mail at dspickler@hagerstownmd.org and by phone at 301-739-8577, ext. 113. Last week, council members agreed that the ethics code might need to be updated.

WASHINGTON COUNTY -- Rebecca Massie Lane has been hired as the new director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts effective Aug. 1. "I am eager to begin," Lane said in a press release accepting the position. "I look forward to learning more about Washington County, to meeting people in the community and to developing arts programming that will uplift and inspire. I'm very honored to have been selected as the next director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. " Lane currently is the director of the Sweet Briar (Va.)