Society

Letters to the Editor 4/13 Potomac Center offers essential care To the editor: A couple of weeks back a lady from Clear Spring wrote an editorial about closing the Potomac Center in Hagerstown and moving the handicapped residents into the community. I don't know this lady, or her life experiences, but I choose to believe that she has a big heart and her emotions are in the right place. I can speak to my experience and life with my handicapped son, and I know it is similar to many of the parents of children at the Potomac Center because that is where he lived his final 10 years of life.

One by one, would-be combatants lined up to register for the privilege of thrashing each other. "Heavy field or rapier?" Hunter Fowler asked each. He got a pretty good measure of both Saturday during the Highland River Melees conducted on the grounds of the Hager House at City Park. Fowler, of Ellicott City, Md., serves as a "minister of the list" for the Society for Creative Anachronism's Barony of Bright Hills, which, for inhabitants of the 21st century, is in the Baltimore area.

The Hagerstown Lioness Club will meet Thursday, May 7, at the Academy Theater in Hagerstown. The dinner is at 6:30 p.m. and the program begins at 7:30 p.m. Cancellations and additional reservations must be received by Monday, May 4, by calling Sukey Rankin at 301-790-2831. The Academy Theater is off the City Parking Lot in downtown Hagerstown. The meeting topic will be "Women Who Paved the Way. " The guest speaker will be Joy Derr, director of development communications at Hood College in Frederick, Md. Derr will talk about the contributions of two women from the Frederick area who made significant contributions to society.

By RICHARD F. BELISLE / Staff Writer photo: RIC DUGAN / staff photographer [ enlarge ] MARION, Pa. - Two little boys were playing with a dozen toy tractors on the living room carpet at Charlene Gingrich's home on Lighthouse Road. The choice of toys was natural for boys whose mothers belong to the Society of Farm Women of Pennsylvania. Gingrich, 37, is president of Farm Women No. 15, one of 10 groups making up the Franklin County Farm Women.

It began with piece of junk mail. Because you were busy, you tossed it on a table, and moved on to other, more important things in your life. But the next day, a magazine and a store catalog landed there, plus several birthday cards from friends and a week's worth of newspapers. Every time you passed by, you considered sorting through the items and discarding what you didn't need. Instead, you continued adding to the pile, telling yourself you'd get around to straightening things up as soon as you had some free time.

Maryland's prison chief said this week that a reorganization of the state prison system will reduce recidivism and improve the way inmates re-enter society upon their release. Gary D. Maynard, secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said Wednesday that part of the reorganization involves incarcerating prisoners in the same region where they committed their crimes. "Offenders that come into the system stay in that region, and when they re-enter they stay in that region," Maynard said in a telephone interview.