Written By Patricia Bianca They cluster together in a darkened room: men, women and children – illuminated only by flickering candlelight. After a general reading about the importance of remembrance, they approach an...

Written By Lisa Breslin For one week during the summer – July 28 through August 3 – thousands of people visited the Carroll County Agriculture Center and the Danele Shipley Memorial Arena for the annual Carroll...

Written By Lisa Breslin Ten-year-old Skylar Hull’s life revolves around horses and hard work. Every birthday that she can remember, she has asked her grandfather, “Poppy” (Edward Shock of Westminster), “Is my pony waiting for me...

Written By Lisa Breslin The artwork of Constance A. “Coni” Humphrey reflects the personality of its late creator: quirky, sensitive, refined and sometimes raucous and raw. Throughout the month of December, the drawings and...

Written By Kimberly Liddick-Byrnes The YMCA has big plans for the former Westminster Inn, which it now owns. Built as a school around the end of the 19th century, the Westminster Inn sits in the heart of the city between Main...

Written By Lisa Breslin A local group of determined independent film buffs are in their fourth and hopefully soon-to-be-final year of production on a feature film–shot in 16 mm–about a newlywed who, still dressed in...

Written By Sherwood Kohn Halloween and Thanksgiving (or rather the day after Thanksgiving) now rival Christmas for the title of most lucrative marketing holidays of the year. It has always seemed misleading to refer to the day...

By Photos by: Phil Grout Tucked away in a river gorge in an almost forgotten corner of southeast Carroll County, the village of Patapsco is remote enough to remind some folks of a slice of West Virginia. Early 19th Century land...

Written By David Greisman On a warm, humid early summer evening, thousands of honeybees congregated at the entrances of hives set up in multiple spots around the yard in front of Steve McDaniel’s Manchester home. Each hive...

Written By Linda Morton In the southwest corner of Carroll County, where two Watersville Roads intersect about two miles southeast of Mount Airy, a tiny clapboard church is celebrating a big birthday this year. The Davis Meeting...

Written By Vicki Anzmann The notion that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure can be aptly applied to the world of antiques and collectibles. With a visit to the Historical Society of Carroll County’s...

Written By Sheila Herbst Last winter my husband and I took out an old fence behind our house. We suspected that hidden among the honeysuckle, something more sinister was lurking: poison ivy. We were right. Spring brought a neat...