Thursday, Jan. 21, 1993 --

• A proposal to convert Salisbury’s trash pick up schedule to just one day each week has been abandoned, following emotional pleas from city residents. The city wanted to implement the new schedule in February and save $11,000 this year in overtime expenses for the Public Works Department. During a two-hour hearing on the matter, 53 people spoke against the change, with nearly all making emotional pleas.

• Maryland Lottery officials said their new but controversial game called Keno is off to a huge start, with $3.26 million being wagered statewide during the first week. Officials expected each of the lottery’s 600 outlets to average about $3,000 a week in sales, but the actual number was nearly $6,000. Officials hope to have 1,800 outlets servicing Lotto players by June.

• The Wicomico County Board of Education is moving closer to approving a new curriculum -- beginning with 9th-graders -- that will allow students to meet new state graduation requirements. Meanwhile, the board is backing a General Assembly measure to abolish the state’s new mandatory requirement on student community service.

• Congressman Wayne T. Gilchrest is facing criticism for his decision not to attend Wednesday’s inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Members of Congress are automatically granted access to sit on the inauguration platform, but Gilchrest, a Republican, said he will stay home and watch the historic event on television. “It’s not like they need me to swear in Bill Clinton,” Gilchrest told a reporter earlier in the week.

• The new man in charge of the Maryland State Police Salisbury Barrack said he plans to have his troopers crack down on area speeders, drug carriers and drunken drivers. Lt. Rick McGee, a 21-year State Police veteran, said speed detection devices that employ a laser beam will be deployed, thereby thwarting motorists who use radar detectors. McGee said his troopers will also be increasing their focus on catching drivers who use Wicomico County as a corridor to transport guns and drugs between Norfolk and New York City.  

• More than 1,200 people gathered at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center for the annual Martin Luther King Birthday Celebration. Well-known Civil Rights leader the Rev. Emmett Burns of the Rising Sun First Baptist Church in Baltimore was the keynote speaker.

• State Highway officials have applied for a federal wetlands permit for the planned Salisbury Route 50 Bypass. Engineers said the 4-mile-long highway will pass through about 6 acres of wetlands. The area in greatest dispute is in the vicinity of Jersey Road, where engineers have had to draft three possible alignments for the road, which is expected to cost $74 million.

• Louise Hearn, the school nurse at North Salisbury Elementary School, will be honored in a banquet this weekend with the Wicomico School Nurse Award. Hearne, 53, is a 1960 graduate of the Union Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Baltimore and has worked in the Wicomico school system for the last 23 years. Hearne said that on an average day, between 35 and 40 children come to her office for medical aid.