| Pick Maryland Crab
Crabmeat is crabmeat is crabmeat.
Not so, says Delegate Dick D’Amato.
D’Amato introduced legislation to distinguish fresh Bay crab from imported meat by labeling containers.
“I felt the consumers needed more information in the crab market, more understanding of how things work,” D’Amato said.
So D’Amato is troubled that the House Environmental Matters Committee voted down his legislation 20 to 1.
“When the chairman doesn’t want the legislation to pass, the rest of the committee tends to side with him,” D’Amato said, of his bill’s failure.
D’Amato also blames the failure on the importers’ lobbying. Crab labeling endangers importers’ jobs in this region, a threat they do not take lightly.
But the fight is not over, D’Amato vows.
“I think we made quite an accomplishment by bringing up the debate,” he said.
Two new strategies are in the works. A task force — including restaurateur Jimmy Cantler, importer Steve Phillips and Delegates George Owings and Dick D’Amato — is making marketing recommendations. Their report is due December 1.
“I’ve also asked the governor and 25 other delegates to put additional money in the budget, $2,000,000, to look into the genetics of the blue crab as to the possibility of doing hatcheries,” D’Amato said.
So if you insist on genuine Bay crab, you’ve got to ask for the real thing where you shop and eat.
Or profess your preference on your bumpers.
Pick Maryland Crabs.
The Shady Side Rural Heritage Society will sell you that message on a sticker for $2. The sticker also brings income to the Society.
Society copresident Susan Savage learned her crab lesson when, at a party in the middle of winter, her local guests snubbed her pasteurized crab dip. A neighbor pulled her aside to educate her on the ways of the Maryland crab.
“As to the bumper sticker, the attention that Dick D’Amato brought to the plight of our watermen, that is what inspired us,” Savage said. “And Bay Weekly’s editorial concerning crab labeling. I believe your line was, Marylanders are picky about their crabs.”
“At least any of us who live on the Bay,” Savage said.
Buy at the Captain Salem Avery House Museum during Sunday hours or (for orders of five or more) by mail: East Shady Side Rd., (P.O. Box 89) Shady Side 20764: 410/867-4486.
Literacy Spelling Bee ‘Like Honey’ to Sen. President Miller
If spelling made you feel like a dunce, then you probably won’t understand why Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller beamed with such pleasure at being named chairman of the Calvert County Literacy Council’s Fourth Annual Spelling Bee.
Spelling is one of Miller’s strengths. Without television to distract him, he read avidly as a boy, even shining his flashlight under the covers to read after bedtime. “It was one area of my education at which I excelled,” said Miller.
In three decades in politics, Miller’s love never faded.
“Bring on the multi-syllabic words with the ambiguous meanings. I’m up to the challenge,” said Miller.
Miller is not only chairing the bee but also fielding a team.
“It’s been a long time between spell-offs, but I’m looking forward to competing against Calvert County’s finest spellers,” said the Senate president. Del. George Owings III pledged another team of Democrats to counter his former opponent Joe Rooney’s Spellcheck.calm. Rooney’s team won last year’s prize for best costume.
Among a dozen or so other teams will be Bay Weekly’s News Hounds, spelling for the second year. Other repeat entrants include a team from sponsor Calvert Bank and Trus, Calvert County Libraries and Calvert Marine Museum’s Otter Brilliance.
Recalling days past, Miller called “the school spelling bee was exciting, never frightening.”
The May 12 Literacy Bee promises lots of excitement. No kidding. Words travel a steep incline, plunging from bunny to expert. Danger looms for any speller lulled into complacency by the hearty dinner served at Chesapeake Beach American Legion Post 206. Nor is the fun limited to the registered four-person spelling teams. Anybody can get stung.
With judging harsher than at typical bees, Miller — and you — might find this bee not only exciting but also frightening.
Last year’s Bee for Literacy raised $10,000. Enroll a four-person team by pledging $250 to equip volunteer tutors with the materials they need to teach everybody to read. Dinner is $20 per person. Early registrants get extra time to practice those big words: 410/535-3233.
Glory to AA Women of Color
“I am the first woman and African American woman to serve as superin tendent of the 43rd largest school system in the country. I’m working for the day I won’t be unusual,” said Carol Parham at the Eighth Tribute to Women of Color Awards ceremony in Annapolis March 4.
Parham, Anne Arundel County’s superintendent of schools, received the Pathfinder’s Award.
“Pathfinders are those women who open doors for others, forge trails for others to follow, those whose contribution and leadership bring about social change. Carol does all of those things,” says Dr. Classie Hoyle, a Delta Sigma Theta sorority sister and co-chair of the awards luncheon.
Sharing the spotlight with Parham was the Rev. Margaret Hall Pack.
Pack, preacher at Mt. Tabor United Methodist Church in Crownsville for 40 years, won the Good Samaritan Award for commitment to church and community.
Beyond conducting religious services, Pack’s work includes collecting and delivering clothing, money and food to needy families and fire victims in both Anne Arundel and Calvert counties; preparing baskets for patients at Crownsville Hospital Center; visiting, offering prayer, and providing transportation to seniors in nursing homes; and sponsoring fund-raising projects to assist the church and persons in need.
“She would pack the car up and we would drive up and down streets giving things to needy people,” said Pack’s adopted daughter Marguerite Askew.
The Tribute to Women of Color Awards recognize women who serve their communities as pathfinders, Samaritans and young adult leaders. Sponsored by the YWCA Racial Justice Committee, Anne Arundel Medical Center and Nationwide Insurance, Tribute to Women of Color receives nominations from the community.
Sharing honors with Pack and Parham for dedication to reach out beyond themselves into the world are Christellyn R. Johnson and Gloria Johnson, co-recipients of this year’s Service to Youth award, for educational leadership.
Christellyn Johnson is no newcomer to winning awards. In 1997, she earned a place on the Annapolis High School Wall of Fame and the following year recognition as Teacher of the Year. Johnson conducts education workshops and tutors students in need of extra help at First Baptist Church while finding time to raise funds for breast cancer research.
Co-recipient Gloria Johnson spends her time as a volunteer at Annapolis Middle School and Tyler Heights Elementary, a Junior Girl Scout Leader and mentor to young people in her community. Johnson also serves at Mt. Olive A.M.E. Church in Annapolis, where she is superintendent of Sunday school and a member of the mass choir as well as a trustee booster and class leader.
Also honored are 14 young women, mostly 11th and 12th graders, who receive Future Leader scholarships for the promise they show of living up to the high standards set by this year’s adult award winners:
• Tiera Chenault, of Annapolis High School, wins a full four-year School of Communications Scholarship to Howard University.
• Tammy Nick, a May 2000 graduate of Anne Arundel Community College, wins a two-year Morgan State University scholarship & the $500 Dr. Carol S. Parham Future Educator Scholarship.
• Ivory Council, of Broadneck High School, wins a full four-year School of Engineering Scholarship to Howard University.
• Julia Gideon, of Annapolis High School, wins the $2,000 Dr. Faye W. Allen Scholarship.
• Irene Cooper, of Annapolis High School, wins the $1,000 Anne Arundel Health Systems Scholarship.
• Shannon J. Jacobs, of Severna Park High School, wins the YWCA/Barbara Hale Scholarship for $1,000.
• Sheena Washington, of Arundel High School, wins a $1,000 Nationwide Insurance Scholarship.
• Kristin Joi Short, of Southern High School, wins the $1,000 NAACP Scholarship.
• Shatica D. Owen, a freshman at Coppin State University, wins the $500 Alternative Travel Scholarship.
• Nakeesha Collins, of Southern High School, wins the $500 Annapolis Bank and Trust Scholarship.
• Adrienne N. Parker, a student in veterinary medicine at Anne Arundel Community College, wins the school’s $500 scholarship.
• Pilar Harvey, of Southern High School, wins the $500 Bob DeStefano Scholarship.
• Paula Postell, of Annapolis High School, wins the $500 Dick D’Amato Scholarship.
• Jonelle Ridgely, of Broadneck High School, wins the $500 Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic Scholarship.
• Jiselle Rene Burkhalter, a Northeast High School graduate, wins the $500 Law Offices of Addison and Darden Scholarship.
• Heather Wake, of Arundel High School, wins the $500 Wm. Reese & Sons Scholarship.
Way Downstream …
In Alaska, Native American girls have something new: The Mattel Corp. has unveiled “Tlingit Barbie,” which the company says was inspired by “the history and lifestyles of the Northwest Coast Native Americans.” She’s dressed in a Chilkat blanket and tiara-like headband. But Alaskan native Mabel Pike wasn’t impressed. “I think she looks more Samoan,” Pike told the Anchorage Daily News …
In Pennsylvania, a cracked pipeline is being blamed for the spill of 190,000 gallons of crude oil at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge near Philadelphia. The oil leaked for three days last month before being discovered by a hiker. Authorities have advised the company, Sunoco, to install a leak-detection system …
Dallas zoo officials have a new tool to lure wild ocelots for tagging and identification: Calvin Klein Obsession cologne. “We’ve tried other scents on them, but they like their Calvin,” a zookeeper said …
In Russia, it’s shades of the KGB if you root for the environment. The Russian Prosecutor General has ordered a nationwide investigation of conservation groups, including the one that disclosed problems at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant …
Our Creature Feature this week comes from Seattle, where a group of older women calling themselves the Raging Grannies donned feather boas and pompoms at a public hearing on salmon recovery. Then they sang:
“We like our rivers without all those dams, so fish can swim without those awful jams. We like policies that help the fish. To save the fish is what we wish; we’re radical environmentalists.”
Copyright 2000
Bay Weekly
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