The much anticipated "Rock The House" Graduation Celebration in Annapolis ended with alarm bells sounding Thursday evening.
The room began to smell of smoke. People grabbed their belongings and left via a narrow stairway. We spotted flakes of ash dropping from a ceiling vent onto Sen. Robert J. Garagiola (D-Montgomery County). Read our breaking-news coverage here.
Minority Leader Sen. Allan H. Kittleman (R-Howard County) this morning joked that the Baltimore Sun's reporting on the evening tarnished his squeaky clean image. It was the only time he went out to a bar all session, he said.
Sadly, news of the evacuation overshadowed a star performance by House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel County) who roasted the junior lawmakers in his chamber for about 20 minutes, coming up with zingers for each of them.
One of the more memorable quips was for a Montgomery County Democrat he dubbed “Heather ‘Transparency’ Mizeur” because of a package of legislation she’s pushing to post online more information about how laws are made.
The delegate was at the bar when her name called, leaving Busch alone in the front of the room with her certificate. Busch waited a few beats and quipped: “She’s so transparent nobody can see her.”
When the music started Busch assured us he was not dancing. He modestly said that he is like “an elevator” with “no steps.” It just wasn’t true.
This morning, Busch said he was in the running for the John Travolta Award but was edged out by Del. Kumar P. Barve (D-Montgomery County).
(Also, in our hurry to leave sans singe, we took the wrong overcoat, shown at left. If you are missing a beige Nienhaus coat, please e-mail annie.linskey@baltsun.com. If you picked up a light pink, three-quarter sleeve coat we're looking for it, and we borrowed it from someone else so we are in big trouble if we don't get it back. )