The Star-Democrat from Easton, Maryland • Page 1

Maryland makes NCAA IB Hue Ste-OeoTOCiraift March 14, 1994 Easton, Maryland Thirty-five Cents Monday Edition nr--v; i Jury selection set for double murder trial Man charged with killing his fiancee's two brothers 4 1 V.A-- i ymti Osw ii-s v7 7 By MARCIE ALVARADO Staff Writer DENTON Jury selection begins today in Caroline County Circuit Court for the Winnie Perry Whitby double murder trial. Whitby is charged with killing his fiancee's brothers, Stephen and Michael Brooks of Stevensville. Whitby has been held in the Caroline County Detention Center on $150,000 bond since his arrest Aug. 11. Whitby, 23, of Chester was charged with double counts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter and several weapons violations.

The brothers were found dead in their parked car off Stony Point Road near Hillsboro at about at 7 p.m. Aug. 8, 1993. Police said they retrieved a handgun from Whitby's Liquor code hearing tonight By JOHN GRIEP Staff Writer EASTON Proposed changes to the county liquor code will be discussed tonight at a public hearing. Two bills Under consideration by the Talbot County Council will be discussed at the hearing.

One bill would permit Talbot County to license supermarkets to sell beer and wine. The other would prohibit supermarkets in the county from selling alcohol. Changes to the code were proposed by Sidney Campen, a lawyer for Giant Food. Giant is constructing a supermarket in the Shoppes at Easton on Elliott Road. Campen submitted proposed code changes to the.

county council in early January, asking the county to clarify whether supermarkets are eligible for a county liquor license. Under the current code, it is unclear whether Giant would be eligible for a liquor license in Talbot County. The state prohibited supermarkets, chain stores and discount houses from obtaining liquor licenses in 1979, but the county's liquor code does not specifically mention those types of businesses. Despite the state prohibition, Talbot has the authority to allow supermarkets to sell beer and wine. Campen said Giant officials needed to know if a liquor license would be granted to finalize the store's interior layout.

Two Easton supermarkets, SuperFresh and Safeway, had licenses before the state ban and were able to keep them under a grandfather clause. The public hearing begins at 7 p.m. Monday at the Talbot County Free Library. 800,000 Marylanders affected by hunger apartment after the shooting. The state's attorney said Whitby voluntarily turned the liber handgun over to police the night after the bodies were discovered.

Prosecutors said ballistics reports showed the handgun was used in the slayings. Whitby reportedly told police he was practicing karate moves along Piney Creek near his Chester apartment at the time of the murders. Whitby was living with the victims' sister at the time. State's attorney Christian Jensen is not seeking the death penalty for Whitby, but instead is requesting a life sentence without parole. Following initial court appearances in August, Whitby's fiancee, Julie Kaye Brooks, 20, said she did not believe the defendant killed her brothers.

Other Please see TRIAL, p.lOA programs had a child. More than half of those children were under age 5. Hungry children are several times more likely to suffer from health problems including anemia, weight loss, frequent colds, headaches and fatigue. Undernutrition also results in low birth weights and contributes to high infant mortality rates. Hunger also adversely affects concentration and learning ability.

Academic achievements of children with hunger-related health problems are lower than other students. Anemia affects nearly 25 percent of low-income children in America, severely inhibiting cognitive development and influencing attention span and memory, according to a Tufts University hunger policy center. A number of people served by regional food providers were employed or had someone in their household who was employed. One-third of all people who seek food from relief agencies have someone in the household who is employed. Between 17 and 30 percent of people served by soup kitchens and food pantries were employed.

People are hungry primarily because they are not able to work Please see HUNGER, p. 10A Inside Today The winners Easton's Janay Brooks, left, shares a quiet moment with assistant coach Leith Wicker after the Warriors won their second straight state girls' basketball championship Saturday night. See page 2B for more photos of Saturday's game. Dorchester seeks to upgrade auditorium Photo by Chri Tyra performing arts center in the community. The money is available from the state with the con-ditioa that a matching $25,000 be contributed locally.

Kimmel said the DAC is prepared to begin raising funds to match the state grant once an agreement has been reached with the Dorchester County Board of Education about the cooperative use of the facility. He noted that the school system has had no problems working with the Arts Center and other community organizations that Please see SEATS, p.lOA recently voted to consider ways to make the auditorium at Cambridge-South Dorchester High School (C-SD) serve in such a capacity. "We don't feel there is much of a demand for a brand new theater," DAC representative Tom Kimmel told the Dorchester County Board of Education during its March 9 meeting. "We're not asking for any money from the school system," he explained. Sen.

Frederick C. Malkus, D-Mid-Shore, had passed legislation creating a $25,000 grant to study the feasibility of creating a By JOHN GRIEP Staff Writer EASTON More than 800,000 Maryland residents are going hungry or are at risk of hunger, according to 1992 data from a state food and nutrition task force. On the Eastern Shore, there are 29 shelters, 95 emergency food pantries and 37 soup kitchens which receive food from the Maryland Food Bank. Ron Armstrong, regional organizer for the Maryland Food Committee, said the group is working to end hunger, while providing emergency food assistance now. Children and the elderly are most at risk for hunger and undernutrition and make up the majority of those in need of emergency food assistance in Maryland, according to state and regional food providers.

Nearly 60 percent of people needing food assistance in Maryland were children or senior citizens, the Maryland Food Committee reported. On the Mid-Shore, 24 percent of public school students received free or reduced-price meals in 1991. About 4,149 Mid-Shore children were estimated to be living in poverty. Two of every three households served by emergency food 3 percent cost of living raise for all employees. Money also will be targeted to make teachers' salaries more competitive with the rest of the region.

"We know we can't compete with Montgomery County but we ought to be able to compete with the other counties on the Eastern Shore." Bell said Dorchester's current starting salary for teachers, $23,000, is the lowest on the Eastern Shore. He said the budget will include money to raise the starting salary to $24,500. Reducing class size was the second priority listed by the 112 school employees completing the board's survey. "Our enrollment is going up by about 2 percent each year." Bell said the growth is concentrating in the North Dorchester area. The budget includes hiring new teachers for North Dorchester High School, North Dorchester Middle School, Maple Elementary and South Dorchester PreK-8 to meet the demands of increased enrollment There are also plans to hire new teachers at four other schools in an effort to decrease class sizes Warwick Elementary, the St.

Pleas see BUDGET, p.lOA County asks school employees' advice in preparation of budget Alternative programs for disruptive youth was top priority acoustics as well as theater-goers who have found sitting in the auditorium's hard plastic seats a painful experience. During, this past weekend's production of "Peter Pan" by the Cambridge-South Dorchester senior class, comments could be heard during intermissions about the various maladies resulting from the seating arrangements. The state grant is the result of the Dorchester Arts Center (DAC) proposal to create a performing arts center in the county. After several years of debating the feasibility of a major construction project, the DAC board MATTHEW T. CAREY appears in NBC sitcom is set in St.

Louis, Mo. and follow the life of an 11-year-old girl, played by Gaby Hoffman, who appeared in Sleep-Ices In Seattle. Carey plays Neil, the brother of Hoffman's character's best friend. "He's a normal kid, but he's got a gross side to him," Carey said of the He said he has enjoyed taping the show. It's just fun he said.

"It's a lot of fun being in front of an audience. The best part of this show is it has a live audience, it's not canned." By GAIL DEAN Dorchester Editor CAMBRIDGE The Dorchester Arts Center hopes to make use of a $25,000 grant to study ways to improve the auditorium at Cambridge-South Dorchester High School. That information is welcome news to people in the community who enjoy the theatrical productions and other events staged in the auditorium. The need for some kind of improvement is obvious to both those who have performed on the stage there and battled the less-than-perfect Eastonian to appear in TV show Matthew Carey co-stars in NBC's Someone Like Me' By RICK ARCHER Staff Writer EASTON A former Easton resident will have his television debut tonight. Thirteen-year-old actor Matthew Thomas Carey will appear in the NBC situation comedy "Someone Like Me." The show premires at 8:30 p.m.

This will be Carey's first television role, but he has been acting since he saw his older brother in a school play in according to his mother, Barbara Paul "His first acting role was in the "fifth grade at the Country School, she said. "I'm rather over-awed at the moment." A student at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York City, he did stage work in York and Washington, DC, before landing this role two months ago. The show, created by a former executive producer of Ann Landers 9A Ctasslfleds 4-78 iCowicsj'' -A fomBy g3 life on the Shore 7 A Maryland news 3A Nation A World 2A Obituaries 10A Sports yM-y 1-33 Tyeaingt 8A By GAIL DEAN Dorchester Editor CAMBRIDGE Creating alternative programs for disruptive youth was the top priority when employees of Dorchester public schools were asked how they would spend the system's money. "We sent a survey to every employee," explained Dorchester County School Superintendent Spicer Bell. "We asked them to help us prioritize the budget." Although many of the numbers in the school systenf annual budget, are still being runched, Bell was able to mention a few in remarks during Wednesday's monthly board meeting.

He said $350,000 has been budgeted for an alternative education program for students in need of behavior modification. It will include separate classes for students with severe problems. Dorchester School Board President Joseph Layton Jr. defines this program as "improving the climate in the classroom. He said the focus will not be on discipline but on finding other ways to reach these children and change their behavior.

"We're looking at a wide 'We sent a survey to every employee. We asked them to help us prioritize the budget. Spicer Bell Dorchester County school superintendent variety of programs," Layton said, including not just separate classrooms for disruptive students but also instruction for teachers to train them to deal with disruptive students. The actual budget will be presented during a March 23 public hearing at Maple Elementary School which will begin at 7 p.m. Layton said the board's goals during budget deliberations are "to continue what we're doing well and make improvements where, we need them." He said increasing teachers' salaries is part of this effort so that Dorchester can compete with other counties in the region in attracting and keeping good teachers.

Bell said the budget includes a Sin- -y 1 t' i 4i: f. 1 i t.VU 1 11. ir- i-: 7. i y4 U. 3.