Sand

Editor's note: Each Sunday, The Herald-Mail will run "A Life Remembered. " The story will take a look back at a member of the community who died in the past week through the eyes of family, friends, co-workers and others. Today's "A Life Remembered" is about John Randolph "Randy" Walker Jr., who died July 9 at the age of 86. His obituary appeared in the July 12 editions of The Morning Herald and The Daily Mail. marlob@herald-mail.com Joe Walker said there were a lot of adventures with his two older brothers as they grew up in the 1920s in a third-floor townhouse in downtown Hagerstown with their father, the dentist.

Victoria Butler, 3, dances in the sand Tuesday at the volleyball courts at War Memorial Park in Martinsburg, W.Va.

BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. -- With Golden Gate Capital taking over ownership of U.S. Silica last week, no moves or office closings are anticipated. John Ulizio, U.S. Silica chief executive, said he has "every expectation" the offices will remain at the Berkeley Springs plant off U.S. 522. The plant will stay open, he said. The industrial sand producing company employs about 83 people at the plant and about 50 people at its corporate offices. Ulizio said the majority of the plant employees live in Morgan County, and just a few corporate office employees are from Berkeley Springs.

Left. Right. Left. Right. I got together with a couple of buddies and went out for a nature walk last Monday. It had been two years since I got out to experience the outside world in all its splendor. It was left, right, left, right. There were trees. Maple. Oak. Pine. Evergreens. There was grass. Short. Tall. Ankle deep. Thigh deep. There were animals. Squirrels. Groundhogs. Geese. Deer droppings.

The rule of the March Madness college basketball tournament, which starts with 65 teams and ends with one champion, is "survive and advance. " Survive and advance. This is pretty much the way I feel about the beach. Since the Pelican in High Heels virtually grew up on the beach, she has a very different view. To her, the beach is a hot, sandy, sultry, fragrant, lively, melting pot of humanity. To me, however, the beach is a hot, sandy, sultry, fragrant, lively, melting pot of humanity.

scottb@herald-mail.com As part of the Maryland Highway Administration's U.S. 40 Streetscape project, scheduled for completion in June or July, contractors are replacing eight crosswalks from an earlier phase of Streetscape, Maryland Highway Administration spokeswoman Lori Rakowski said Friday. During the $1.7 million second phase of the state-funded project the contractor is scheduled to remove two crosswalks at Cannon Avenue and Washington Street, two at Cannon and Franklin Street and four at Potomac Street and Franklin, she said.

BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. -- Four plant workers will be laid off at U.S. Silica Co. on Feb. 1, the sand mine plant on U.S. 522 north of town. The plant also will begin operating on a four-day schedule that day, according to a Monday memo to U.S. Silica employees from Ted Glennon, plant manager. The cutback will result in a reduction of hours from 40 to 32 per week for its employees. About 83 employees work at the plant. The memo said the layoffs and reduction in hours are due to a downturn in the economy and slower business activity.

marlob@herald-mail.com HANCOCK - Snow or no snow. Either way, the fifth Hancock Winter Festival will get under way Saturday at Widmeyer Park. Last year, there was no snow, so the Hancock Arts Council organizers were all ready with sand for the sculpting activities. "We're going to hope for the best this year as far as the weather is concerned," said Sinclair Hamilton, one of those organizers. Initially, there were some efforts to get a generator to power a snow-making machine for this weekend, but that didn't work out. Sand again will be available should the weather not cooperate for Saturday's event.

Is a six- to eight-hour round trip getting to be too much trouble to bury the toes in the sand and ride the waves? Bring the feeling of the beach home, just for a day or a season, without unloading a dump truck of sand. Here are some tips from Susan Kille, co-owner of The Gala Event in Chambersburg, Pa.; Zozzie Golden, co-owner of Innovative Party Planners in Owings Mills, Md.; and this seasoned beachcomber: Provide an atmosphere in the house that is light and airy using blues and sea-green colorings in wall colorings or coverings, glassware and centerpieces.

WILLIAMSPORT - There was a hot time in the old town on Saturday. So hot, in fact, that the only vendor at the yearly Williamsport Days festival who was doing a really brisk business was selling ice cream. "We're doing pretty good," said Codi Trumpower, who was working the ice cream trailer for the Williamsport Volunteer Fire Co. "We didn't do as well last year; it was a lot cooler," Trumpower said. "We're doing a lot better today. " Still, many of the peddlers seemed undaunted.

The family of Carol Marie Brown broke into tears Friday afternoon as a jury of seven men and five women announced in Washington County Circuit Court that they had found Darrol Chris Sands not guilty in her 2008 slaying. The jury deliberated for 7 1/2 hours over two days before finding Sands, 44, not guilty of first- and second-degree murder. The former Hagerstown man bowed his head and appeared to cry as the verdict was read. Brown, 22, was found in the bathtub of her Mitchell Avenue home by her mother on the night of April 19, 2008.

A jury of seven men and five women will resume deliberations today in Washington County Circuit Court in the case of Darrol Sands, a former Hagerstown man accused of the 2008 murder of Carol Marie Brown. In their closing arguments Thursday, Assistant State's Attorney Gina Cirincion and defense attorney James J. Podlas offered very different theories on what happened the night of April 19, 2008, when Brown was found strangled and stabbed in the bathtub of her Mitchell Avenue home.

Darrol Sands was not asked if he killed Carol Brown when he took the witness stand Wednesday in Washington County Circuit Court, but did admit on cross-examination that he paid her in drugs or money for sex, including the night before her death. “I had sex with her four times,” Sands testified when questioned by Deputy State's Attorney Joseph Michael about his relationship with Brown. “I can describe it in detail if you want.” Sands, 44, who is currently serving a state prison sentence for drug distribution, is charged with first- and second-degree murder and manslaughter in the April 19, 2008, slaying of Brown, a 22-year-old mother of two found strangled and stabbed in the bathtub of her Mitchell Avenue home.

The wife of accused killer Darrol Sands testified Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court that her husband went to Carol Brown's house twice the day before the 2008 murder and again on the day Brown's body was discovered in her bathtub, Lori Sands testified that her husband had gone to Brown's Mitchell Avenue home on the afternoon and evening of April 18, 2008. She testified her husband also went over to Brown's house on Saturday, April 19. “He mentioned something about a lawnmower,” Lori Sands testified.

Crime-scene photographs of Carol Brown's body and other forensic evidence were shown to the jury Wednesday in Washington County Circuit Court in the second day of trial for a Hagerstown man accused of killing her nearly four years ago. Darrol Chris Sands, 44, is serving a 15-year state prison sentence on a 2011 drug-trafficking conviction. He was indicted in 2010 with the April 19, 2008, murder of Brown, a 22-year-old mother of two found dead in the bathtub of her Mitchell Avenue apartment in Hagerstown.

The ailing grandmother of a murder victim testified Friday in a videotaped deposition that her granddaughter wanted Darrol Chris Sands to "leave her ... alone" just days before she was slain in 2008. Della Louise Maphis testified in Washington County Circuit Court that she spent several days helping granddaughter Carol Marie Brown clean her Mitchell Avenue home and that Sands came by at least twice during that time. Brown slept at Maphis' home during that period, except for Friday, April 18, 2008, when she went back to her own home to clean the kitchen, Maphis testified.

Testimony was heard Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court about a misplaced cell phone and the bearing it might have on the admissibility of a statement made to Hagerstown police by a man indicted in the 2008 slaying of a city woman. It was the third time the issue of a defense motion to suppress the Aug. 11, 2010, statement by Darrol C. Sands was heard in court. Following the first hearing in April, Judge John H. McDowell ruled that Sands' videotaped statement was voluntary and thus admissible.

There was no admission of guilt in a murder suspect's interview by Hagerstown police detectives last year, but the videotape of the exchange provided more details of the crime scene and events surrounding the murder of Carol Marie Brown three years ago. Darrol Sands, 43, formerly of Hagerstown, who was indicted in the April 19, 2008, killing, was in Washington County Circuit Court Wednesday seeking to have the video suppressed at his May trial....

A Hagerstown man indicted in December in the 2008 homicide of a woman in her Mitchell Avenue home lived across the street from her at the time of the killing, prosecutors said Thursday. "Forensic evidence puts him at the crime scene," Washington County Assistant State's Attorney Gina Cirincion said of Darrol C. Sands. Cirincion would not reveal what the forensic evidence was, although court records indicate that the Public Defender's Office introduced a motion on Jan. 25 requesting records of a DNA analysis.

SHARPSBURG -- On Saturday, Antietam National Battlefield will offer a somber reminder of the how much was sacrificed to keep the United States united by setting tens of thousands of candles aglow. Each year, the national park hosts the Memorial Illumination, where luminarias - candle-lit paper bags - represent the thousands of soldiers who were killed, wounded or missing during the Civil War's Battle of Antietam. Here's a by-the-numbers look at this year's Memorial Illumination, which enters its 21st year on Saturday, Dec. 5. Park superintendent John W. Howard provided the data.