Shore United Bank
Shore United Bank announced that Jed Anthony has joined the Company as a relationship manager. Mr. Anthony will work from the Dover Street Office in Easton. He joins Shore United Bank with more than 15 years of commercial lending experience.
“We are thrilled to have Jed join our lending team. He is an experienced lender with strong business relationships in the community who cares about helping them be successful,” says Butch Townsend, Market Executive for Shore United Bank.
“I am most excited to assist our small business customers establish and cultivate their business ideas, while helping them grow into a viable and thriving part of our local economy,” says Mr. Anthony.

Mr. Anthony is an active member and past President of the Easton Rotary Club and volunteers as a youth baseball coach in Kent Island. He resides in Chester with his wife, Janice, and their two children, Noah and Malia. Jed enjoys traveling, coaching baseball and supporting his children in all of their many activities.
Cover Crop deadline: Dec. 1

Due to continued rainfall and excessively wet field conditions across most of the state, the Maryland Department of Agriculture has announced a second extension of the planting deadline for farmers who signed up for grants to plant fall cover crops through the Maryland Agricultural Water Quality Cost-Share (MACS) Program. Farmers now have until Dec. 1 to plant qualifying cover crops of wheat, spelt, rye, and triticale in their fields.
Farmers who plant their cover crops between Nov. 13 and Dec. 1 will still qualify for financial support through the program, however, in order to maximize water quality benefits, suppression/kill down may not take place before May 1, 2021.

The planting extension is only available to farmers who use the following planting methods: no till, conventional, or broadcast with light, minimum, or vertical tillage. With the extension, farmers must certify their cover crop with their local soil conservation district within one week of planting and no later than Dec. 8 in order to be reimbursed for associated seed, labor, and equipment costs.

Maryland’s Cover Crop Program is administered by the MACS Program and the state’s 24 soil conservation districts. Funding is provided by the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund and the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund.
For more information, farmers should contact their local soil conservation district or the MACS office at 410-841-5864. Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Twitter @MdAgDept.

Restaurant grants
Beginning Nov. 16, Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development, Inc. (SWED) will begin accepting applications for its new Restaurant Relief Grant Fund. With $836,000 in funding from the State of Maryland, grants up to $15,000 are available for restaurants in Wicomico County that have been significantly and negatively impacted by the Coronavirus-19 pandemic, especially with regard to indoor dining capacity.
Wicomico County Acting Executive John Psota said, “We appreciate the State of Maryland’s partnership and in recognizing the challenges facing our restaurant industry. A special thank you to SWED once again for your leadership in helping small businesses throughout Wicomico County mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Targeted grant amounts consist of three levels ($5,000, $10,000 and $15,000) and are based on the number of Full Time Equivalent employees.

SAM Wins
With more than 90 entries coming in from across the country, Marylander Natalie Grasso came up with the winning name for the www.FindMeDriving.com character naming contest. “SAM” is the face of the new road safety campaign initiated by the Maryland Soybean Board (MSB).
Research funded by the Board showed that driver education on how to drive near slow moving vehicles (SMV), such as combines, tractors, buggies and wagons, could help decrease accidents on roads.

“Our committee had a lot of creative options to consider with entries from Washington state to Louisiana,” commented Belinda Burrier, farmer from Frederick County and MSB Chair. “We were delighted to see such a strong response to the contest and hope to see the enthusiasm continue for the education campaign.”

Selected for its relevance to slow moving vehicles, creativity, and ease of use in broad applications, Grasso captured it all with her entry.

“When I read about the naming contest, I wanted to come up with something that was ‘catchy,’ that would be easy to remember and that would be associated with the slow moving vehicle (SMV) character/emblem,” Grasso said. “I noticed that the corners were cut off on the triangle body of the character/emblem, so I came up with the slogan: Don’t Cut Corners, Follow SAM!
S = Slow Down
A = Assess your Surroundings
M = Move with Caution.”

Grasso has a familiarity with transportation topics, working in the Office of Information Resources at the Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration (MDOT MVA). “The Maryland Highway Safety Office falls under MDOT MVA, so safety is a huge part of what we do here and what we hear about on a daily basis.”

The Maryland Soybean Board is partnering with the MVA to help reach the goal of zero deaths and injuries on Maryland roads. Driver tips for driving near SMVs are available at www.findmedriving.com. The site also features tips for drivers of SMVs, to be proactive drivers and help avoid accidents. Further educational programming is underway.