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In Maryland, it’s official. June is Great Outdoors Month. Gov. Martin O’Malley — along with 13 fellow governors — proclaimed June the month to hike, bike, fish, boat and camp. The 14-state proclamation was sought by the American Recreation Coalition, which also brings us National Trails Day, National Boating and Fishing Week, National Family Recreation Week and National Clean Beaches Week …

Statewide, there’s still time to seek a grant for adding solar energy to your house or office. The Maryland Energy Administration will partner with you to pay 20 percent of the cost of a solar panel (up to $3,000) or solar water heater (up to $2,000). Grants are ongoing: www.energy.state.md.us …

In Gambrills, the U.S. Naval Academy has chosen Anne Arundel County to lease its much sought-after former dairy farm, with details of the lease pending. The county anticipates continuing its rural heritage through “a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production” …

In Anne Arundel County, Maryland Natural Resources Police knew something was seriously amiss when they found a boat overturned in a pound net in the middle of the West River recently at 1:30am. It could have been a whole lot worse: the boat’s operator, identified as Ronald Calder, 46, was charged with operating a vessel under the influence of alcohol after being tracked down at home. Somehow he’d made it to a convenience store and phoned his wife. It was one of several boating DUIs recently, suggesting that marine police are on the prowl. Indeed, over the Memorial Day weekend, they checked over 9,000 boats …

In Congress, Steny Hoyer adds another first to Maryland history books; he’s Maryland’s longest serving congressman. Twenty-six years — since June 3, 1981 — sets the record. It’s been no sinecure, as he’s had to rewin his seat every two years. The dean of Maryland’s congressional delegation also scored three earlier state firsts: First as House Democratic Caucus Chair, then as House Democratic Whip and now as House Majority Leader, he’s won the title of Maryland’s highest ranking House member. Hoyer celebrates his 68th birthday on June 14, celebrating with his 27th annual bull roast at Newton White Mansion in Mitchellville on June 8 …

In Prince Georges County, the state is offering $150 vouchers to homeowners to replace ash trees cut down after discovery of the emerald ash borer, a destructive beetle that hitchhiked into Maryland on trees from a Michigan nursery. After cutting down more than 25,000 ash trees, the state’s also setting up a firewood blockade to keep the borer contained, banning outside firewood from all Department of Natural Resources parks and campgrounds ...

In Pennsylvania, Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer won the applause of her alma mater. Moyer and six other Penn State alums were honored as Distinguished Alumni. The 1958 alumna earned the award for her “lifelong commitment to public service and improving the lives of her fellow citizens in Annapolis and Maryland” …

Our Creature Feature comes from the Eastern Shore, where an imposing specimen discovered recently in a net off Tilghman Island is getting a hearty welcome. It was a seven-foot-long Atlantic sturgeon — a pregnant female at that — the likes of which haven’t been reported in Chesapeake Bay for 35 years.

Biologists were tickled pink, hoping to release the fry from the 140-pound fish into the Bay. “It’s something we’ve been wishing for — hoping for — for years,” Andrew Lazur, who oversees the hatchery at the Horn Point Laboratory of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, told Bay Journal …