Dayhoff Westminster

Dayhoff Westminster
www.kevindayhoff.city Address: PO Box 124, Westminster MD 21158 410-259-6403 kevindayhoff@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Kay Church, 66 of Manchester, July 6, 1946 - June 6, 2013

Kevin Dayhoff - Soundtrack: 20060713 Happy Birthday Kay Church: Happy Birthday Kay Church July 13 th , 2006 by Kevin Dayhoff Carroll County Commissioners Julia Gouge, Dean Minnich, and Perry Jon...

Kay Church, 66 of Manchester, July 6, 1946 - June 6, 2013 http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2013/06/kay-church-66-of-manchester-july-6-1946.html

Labels: Carroll Co Commissioners, Carroll Co Govt News, People Carroll Co, People Church Kay, People Obituaries, People Tributes, Tributes

Related: 20060706 KDDC Aunt Kay Birthday Cake and the Commissioners and 20060713 Happy Birthday Kay Church

On Thursday June 6, 2013 Florence Kathleen (Kay) Church age 66 of Manchester, Md. passed away at the Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster, MD.

Born July 6, 1946 in Bluefield, West Virginia she was the daughter of the late Garland Wiley and Betty Jane Shupe and the wife of 43 years to Ronald Church. http://www.eckhardtfuneralchapel.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2112316&fh_id=11311

Surviving in addition to her husband is daughter Lisa Lynne (Church) Breeden, son Ronald A. Church Jr. son in law Andrew Breeden, and grandchildren Ethan, Chandler, Abby, Hannah and Elijah, sisters Karen Sipe of Columbus Ohio and Jinny Lynn Brooks of North Beach Md. and brothers David and John Shupe of Roanoke Va, Jason Shupe of Laurel Md, and Mason Shupe of Alexandria Va.

Kay Grew up in Silver Spring Md and was a 1965 graduate of Montgomery Blair High School. She was the Main Desk receptionist at the Carroll County Government office building for 20 years, retiring from that position in 2010.

Viewings will be held at Eckhardt Funeral Chapel P.A. 3296 Charmil Drive Manchester Md 21102 on Monday evening June 10 from 7:00-9:00 pm, and Tuesday June 11 from 10:00 am until noon.

Following the Tuesday viewing a memorial service will be held officiated by Father James K. Hamrick.

The family wishes to express their gratitude to the Hampstead Volunteer Fire Company ambulance crew for their exemplary service and care during our trying time. Donations of any amount will be accepted at both viewings to benefit this most worthy cause.

Online condolences may be made to www.eckhardtfuneralchapel.com.


On July 13th, 2006, I wrote in a piece titled, “20060713 Happy Birthday Kay Church” http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2006/07/20060713-happy-birthday-kay-church.html:

Happy Birthday Kay Church
July 13th, 2006 by Kevin Dayhoff

Carroll County Commissioners Julia Gouge, Dean Minnich, and Perry Jones surprise Carroll County Office Building receptionist Kay Church with a birthday cake for her birthday.

People Carroll County, Carroll County Commissioners, Carroll County Government News

Related: 20060706 KDDC Aunt Kay Birthday Cake and the Commissioners

Last Thursday was a milestone birthday for the receptionist at the Carroll County office building information desk, Kay Church, aka “Aunt Kay.

How old is she did you ask? Well, here at the Westminster Eagle, we’re not in the business of competing with The New York Times when it comes to divulging state secrets, but we will give you a hint. She’s the same age as President George W. Bush.

So just what does an “information desk receptionist” do? After all, I have always been focused on the fact that she has a friendly greeting, warm smile, and almost always has cookies. She sits almost exactly where the old Crowl ice cream factory used to be, long before the office building was there, so she is continuing a great tradition of hospitality through food.

When I wander into the building, Aunt Kay is quick to tell me where to go. In my years of working for the public I’ve been told where to go on a number of occasions, but no one does it as nicely as Aunt Kay.

According to our sources, Aunt Kay is part guidance counselor, honorary bailiff (armed with a salad shooter and hard carrots at the ready,) tour guide and mother confessor.

She is also the mother of two grown children. Well, three, if you count her husband, Ron, who also works for county government in the Bureau of Development Review.

Aunt Kay has worked for the county since August 1988, when, after working for Black and Decker in Hampstead, the Manchester Pharmacy and the Hampstead sewing factory, she took a job in personnel services (now called production distribution,) on the bottom floor of the building.

In November 1989 she got a promotion and a raise – to the first floor, where she has been found ever since in her “command station” at the main entrance of the building.

As for her job, Aunt Kay says, she’s “taken an avocation and turned it into a career. I like people and I like talking.”

Recently I had an opportunity to sit down with Aunt Kay so she could talk a little about her job. And talk is exactly what she did. It was like opening the flood gates of genuinely friendly southern charm.

Then again, getting Aunt Kay to talk was not only easy, but getting Aunt Kay to take a break is not really that unusual since she always takes time to help citizens as they hustle and bustle by her command post. And usually, no matter how busy she is, she acts like her sole job is to help you.

“I love serving the public. Carroll County citizens are the best,” as she bubbled over with pride about working for Carroll County government and flowery praise and admiration for her co-workers in the building.

She’s not the first to be the friendly public gatekeeper for the building, Bea Sauble had served in the position for ten years. Aunt Kay was quick and adamant to be sure that it was mentioned that she works with a team that includes, Patsy Hughes, Brenda Wetzel, Gina Ellis, Courtney Hammond and JoAnna Crone.

“This building is really something,” she elaborated. “Oh, everyone has their day now and then, but by far, this is the greatest, kindest and most caring group of folks … This building is all one big team.”

She also quickly added that she wished everyone could be aware of the “dedication, hard work and everything that goes into public service” by the county employees.

As Aunt Kay has now worked for county government for three decades and five different commissioner administrations, she has seen some changes over the years.

Every commissioner she “has ever worked with has been really dedicated. They take the time to get to know each employee’s name and they make you feel like an equal and valuable part of a team. Each and every one of them has been especially good to me.”

“Of course, the building was smaller. The county was smaller, but county government is still small enough to know its customers and be in the customer service business.

“I used to walk to work until the traffic began to worry me”, she lamented. Of course, what most readers don’t know, is that when Aunt Kay, the energizer bunny, talks about walking to work, we’re not just speaking of traveling by foot from around the block. “It’s only 10 miles from home to the county office building,” she adds casually.

One of her goals when she retires is the walk the 2,144 mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. But no one wants her to retire anytime too soon.

Asked how the tradition of the cookies began, she said that “cookies have always been a part of who I am. Being raised in the south, when visitors come you feed them. Besides, I love to bake.”

“This job… working with the public has been so good to me that the cookies are the least I can do to give something back. Folks used to be surprised (that cookies are available at the receptionist desk,) now folks stop by her desk before they see the bailiffs and ask for a cookie.”

Always greeting citizens with a smile and a cookie does give way to humor from time to time. When asked for a funny story or two, she lit up and immediately responded, “My favorite one - and it happens every day is the question: ‘Do these stairs go down?’”

For Kay Church everything is always looking up and the county is fortunate to have her and the many other hundreds of great county employees working for our quality of life and future.

Next time you are in the county office building - or call, say happy birthday to Aunt Kay. Her birthday was last week, but when you walk in the county office building, every citizen is special and every day is your birthday.

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Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

www.kevindayhoff.net

E-mail him at: kevindayhoff AT gmail.com


His columns and articles appear in The Tentacle - www.thetentacle.com;  Westminster Eagle Opinion; www.thewestminstereagle.com  
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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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Monday, June 10, 2013

Chesapeake Bay Journal News

 

Improvements in water quality an added benefit of air pollution regs

People across the Bay watershed have, over the last decade, slashed the amount of nitrogen pollution they generate, mostly without realizing it.
For that matter, so have people in Ohio, North Carolina, parts of Michigan and even Toronto.
Every time they flick on a light, drive their car, or even mow their lawn, they are producing dramatically less nitrogen pollution than was the case little more than a decade ago.
 

Backlash from stormwater fee catches advocates off guard

For longtime stormwater advocates, 2013 should have been a celebratory time. After four years of trying, they had finally persuaded the Maryland General Assembly to pass a bill requiring a stormwater fee for large urban areas. Each of the state's nine largest counties and Baltimore City had begun to develop fees that would help them address this long-ignored source of pollution that is projected to grow as more people move into population centers.
 

B-WET, which funds students’ Bay education, faces elimination

The Bay Watershed Education and Training program, which helps develop programs to provide Chesapeake region students with outdoor environmental education experiences, would face elimination under the budget proposed by President Obama in April.
The budget calls for funding for B-WET and a number of other programs aimed at promoting science, technology, engineering and math education to be consolidated into the U.S. Department of Education, Smithsonian Institution and National Science Foundation
 

Top MD court to decide if Lake Bonnie pollution suit has merit

In the next few months, Maryland's highest court will decide whether the case of an Eastern Shore woman who lost her home and business as a result of septic tank pollution from a nearby town will go to trial.
 

Dam relicensing acknowledges that with power comes responsibility

Standing 50 feet above the Susquehanna River, the view from a catwalk on the Conowingo Dam was a study in contrasts.
To the right, water roiled out from under the dam. After running off a 27,000-square-mile drainage basin that extends well into New York and western Pennsylvania, it had just pushed its way through a series of turbines, generating more than 500 megawatts of electricity in the process.
To the left, a slower flow of water poured over the dam and through a concrete channel into the river, creating a steady water flow aimed at luring migrating fish into an elevator. After hoisting them nearly 100 feet, the elevator releases the fish into another channel that allows them to pass over the dam.
 

Baltimore preparing a TMDL to clean up trash in its water

Walking along Gwynns Falls Trail with Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper Tina Meyers, it's ironic that we pass a beige, beat-up, overturned residential trash can lying by the tree line. We're on our way to survey the Gwynns Falls stream where it meets the Middle Branch of the Baltimore Harbor. Soaking rain falls steadily — it's the kind of day that carries trash down storm drains and into creeks.
 

A pollinator garden in one’s yard may help save plants everywhere

Pollination results when the pollen from the male part of the flower (stamen) is moved to the female part of the same or another flower (stigma) and fertilizes it, resulting in the production of fruits and seeds. Some flowers rely on the wind to move pollen; others on animals.
About 75 percent of all flowering plants rely on pollinators for fertilization and more than 200,000 species of animals act as pollinators. Of those, about 1,000 are hummingbirds, bats and other small animals. The majority of pollinators are insects, such as beetles, bees, ants, wasps, butterflies and moths.
 

Student immerse themselves in plankton study

For the last several years, some Calvert County high school students have gotten a big-picture view about how their everyday activities affect local waterways by studying some of the Bay's tiniest organisms —plankton.
 

Swim Guide app lets users know if local beach is safe to swim in

If you're wondering whether a local beach is safe for swimming this summer, there's an app that can provide the answer.
The Waterkeeper Alliance Swim Guide is available for free on iPhone, Android and other smartphones. You can use your location and it will provide a list of the closest beaches and their status. The status is marked with an icon of a man swimming.
 

Ghost pots estimated to kill 1.25 million blue crabs in VA’s Bay waters

A four-year Virginia study found that so-called ghost fishing carried on by lost and abandoned crab traps takes a very real — and lethal — toll on the Bay's blue crabs and other aquatic dwellers.
Researchers found that the roughly 32,000 crab pots pulled from Virginia waters during four winters of collection efforts held more than 25,000 crabs. Three-fifths of them were females, the gender fishery managers have targeted for increased protection.
 

Even the animals pitch in at this Bay-friendly farm in PA

Before they began farming in 2001, Homer Walden and Dru Peters knew that agriculture was the single largest source of pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. They were aware that raising animals with conventional practices contributes large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus to area waterways. They understood that the same poisons that kill weeds and pests also find their way into creeks and rivers, where they kill other living organisms.
 

Sick smallmouth bass spur effort to seek impaired status for Susquehanna

Eight years ago, it appeared something was wrong with the smallmouth bass in the Susquehanna River.
Thousands of young fish were dying in the heat of July and August, many showing lesions on their shimmery skin. In favorite fishing holes, where anglers could once catch close to 100 fish a day, they were finding few fish alive.
 

MD to cut female blue crab harvest by 10% to bolster reproduction

Maryland natural resources officials have decided to cut the female blue crab harvest by 10 percent with hopes of keeping more crabs in the water so that they can reproduce.
State officials made the decision after analyzing the Winter Dredge Survey numbers. The survey counted 147 million female crabs — double the 70 million that is the healthy abundance threshold. But there was poor reproduction in 2013, and scientists do not want the population to fall back into crisis. The total number of blue crabs dropped from 765 million to 300 million, and juveniles dropped from 581 million to 111 million.
 

FEATURES

Present contradictions of past predictions |Editor’s Note

Researching background for articles in this issue provides a cautionary tale about how difficult it is to predict what the future will bring.
In December 1991, the issue of air pollution and the Bay made the cover of the Bay Journal for the first of many times over the years, and air deposition had only recently been identified as a significant contributor of nitrogen to the Chesapeake.

    The Bay Program has come a long way in 30 years, but has only just begun | Message from the Alliance

     
      The program is the official federal-state-local partnership working on science, policy and programs that support the restoration effort.
      I'm at the point in my life when I think of 30 as young. But there is a sense among some politicians and citizens that we've been spending a lot of money and a lot of time over three decades, so why aren't we done by now?

      From top of bluffs to its marshes, Elk Neck commands one’s attention | Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network

      Fannie Mae Salter was not a woman to take no for an answer. When her husband C.W. "Harry" Salter died in 1925, she thought she would stay on as keeper of the Turkey Point Lighthouse in the Upper Bay.
      But the Lighthouse Service had other ideas. Citing her advanced age (she was in her 40s) they planned to give the job to someone else. So she appealed to her senator and — ultimately — the issue went to the president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge.

      Ospreys are Eggs-cellent! | Chesapeake Challenge


      Bay Buddies focuses on Tom & Audrey, the Bay's celebrated osprey parents. Here is a test of osprey lore. Getting all of these right will earn a feather in your cap!

        Tom & Audrey | Bay Buddies


        The Chesapeake's latest reality stars are ospreys Tom & Audrey — until their chicks hatch and steal the show! If you haven't already, visit www.chesapeakeconservancy.org/Osprey-Cam, where the Chesapeake Conservancy's Osprey Cam has been offering a 24/7 look at the nest-building and egg-laying action at Tom & Audrey's nest site on a platform in the vicinity of Kent Island, MD. Also at the site is a link to a blog about ospreys, and Tom and Audrey in particular. 

          Blue-gray gnatcatcher: big surprises in a tiny package | On the Wing

           
            We were taking a break from the heat and the sun, sitting under a lovely grape arbor. The day had gotten progressively hotter and the sky milkier. Under the arbor, our eyes adjusted to the less intense light and took in the deeper shades of green that only shadows provide.
             

            FORUM

            Reducing stormwater heals people, economy not just waterways | Forum


            There has been a great deal of talk lately about a "rain tax" in Maryland. While catchy, that moniker doesn't begin to get at the heart of the issue.
             

              Otters: the furry brown canary in Bay watershed’s streams | Forum


              I am tramping around the Pocono Mountains in the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay watershed with retired Pennsylvania Game Commission officer Barry Warner. After 25 years of working these lands, he knows where the otters hang out.
               

                Climate change is the real bogeyman, not nuclear energy | Chesapeake Born


                For too long, many environmentalists have been ambivalent about nuclear energy. It conjures fears: meltdowns, cancers, Chernobyl, Fukushima, overtones of nuclear bombs.
                Yet we also know that nuclear power provides 70 percent of all the greenhouse gas-free electrical power in the United States (Hydropower, in which dams block many great rivers like the Susquehanna to fish migration, provides much of the rest).
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                  Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

                  Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
                  Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

                  Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
                  Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
                  Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

                  E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
                  My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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