Havre de Grace welcomed 2014 with its annual Duck Drop and fireworks at midnight New Year's Eve.
The Duck Drop tradition started in 1999. This year's duck was covered in green lights for awareness of an upcoming Susquehanna Hose Company sponsored event in March to benefit the St. Baldrick's Foundation in its fight against childhood cancer.
The first baby born in Harford County in 2014 came into world at 1 a.m. Jan. 1 at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air to parents Jedd and Uliana Cheshier. Victoria Marie weighed in at 8 pounds, 4 ounces and was 21 inches long.
The first of many snowfalls of the winter arrived Jan. 2 with accumulations of 2 to 4 inches.
Harford County acquired 21 acres in the Rock Glenn area of Aberdeen for a new park and soccer fields. The $2.4 million property in the Aberdeen city limits would still be a few years away from development according to Arden McClune, director of Harford County Parks and Recreation. The latter deeded the property to Aberdeen for its eventual development as a park.
A proposed retirement community on part of the 153-acre Eva-Mar Farm near the intersection of Routes 22 and 543 took fire at a development meeting held in Bel Air. The majority of the 400 people attending the meeting reacted negatively toward the proposal. Most attendees were worried about the increase in traffic on the already crowded Route 543. The Eva-Mar project would continue to draw public fire at a series of county review meetings over the winter and into the end of summer. By year's end, the project had not begun.
Harford County Executive David R. Craig officially filed papers with the State Board of Elections to run as a Republican candidate for governor.
Bitter cold arrived Jan. 6 as the temperature dropped to single digits and the wind chill made it feel as cold as 15 below. High temperatures in and around Bel Air on Jan. 7 barely reached 10 degrees. Harford County Public Schools were canceled because of the frigid weather.
The Chicken on the Roof Grill was forced to remove the large inflatable chicken from the roof of the business at the corner of Routes 40 and 152 in Joppa. The large inflatable was a violation of signage laws, according to county council attorney Melissa Lambert. The owners of the restaurant filed a variance with the county's Board of Appeals to try to get their chicken back.
Teri Kranefeld, director of communications for Harford County Public Schools and the voice of countless snow closing robocalls to students and parents, announced she would be leaving her post as HCPS manager of communications after five years to join a Bel Air public relations and advertising firm.
Harford County officials are considering ways to control traffic at the intersection of Route 24 and Plumtree Road as a 198-unit apartment project received zoning approval. This same intersection is also expected to be affected by Walmart's plans to build a new superstore on the other side of Route 24. The Walmart plan, opposed by area residents, had been stalled in county review for several months.
Harford County government's two offers for the former Joppatowne pool property were rejected by the owner, officials said. Residents wanted the county to buy the property and build a community center, but another buyer, a church, offered a non-contingent contract on the property which was accepted and scheduled to go to settlement Jan. 31.
It was announced that the fee to rent the main baseball field at Thomas Run Park on the campus of Harford Community College was set to increase from $100 to $600 per game. This reflected a 500 percent increase for the complex's main baseball field. Teams using the complex protested to county legislators.
The newly-remodeled Maryland House Travel Plaza reopened Jan. 16. The 42,000-square-foot, $30 million Maryland House features food from multiple fast food restaurants, additional bus parking, indoor/outdoor seating and free wi-fi. There is also a new 5,700-square-foot convenience store at a high-speed fueling station.
The Harford County Board of Education adopted Common Core, a set of education standards already adopted by other counties in Maryland. Common Core standards, although not federally mandated, are viewed by state educators and law makers as an extension of the 2001 Federal No Child Left Behind Act which requires minimum performance goals for local school systems.
Isaac Anya Ojiabo Jr., 20, of Forest Hill, was accused of stabbing his mother to death in their home. His mother, Joy Ojiabo, 51, was found dead in the 1600 block of Rushing Stream Court on Jan. 29. She had been stabbed in the chest. Isaac Ojiabo Jr. was charged with first- and second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. This would be the county's first homicide of 2014 and in mid-December, Ojiabo was found not criminally responsible for the murder by a Harford County Circuit Court Judge.