Bulletin

Miles Cunningham, 59, who was an award-winning reporter and editor at the Bulletin, Gannett News Service and the Washington Times, died Monday night in his home in Alexandria, Va., after a three-year bout with stomach cancer. At the time of his death, Mr. Cunningham was employed at Insight magazine in Washington. Born in South Dakota, Mr. Cunningham grew up in Arlington, Va., where he graduated from Washington and Lee High School; in 1955, he earned a journalism degree from the University of Tennessee.

  The Virgin Mary was due to appear on the night of Sept. 20, 1953. Reappear, actually, as she had already appeared to a group of youngsters twice in two days at 52d Street and Parkside Avenue at the edge of Fairmount Park. More than 50,000 came to see the expected miracle. Among them was Henry R. Darling, a young reporter for the Evening Bulletin, who had been on the paper only a few years and had been assigned obituaries, 50th anniversaries, and innocuous features.

Raymond E. DeVries Sr., 94, formerly of Drexel Hill, a retired news editor with the Bulletin, died Tuesday at the Wallingford Nursing Home. Mr. DeVries began his career as a reporter in Red Bank, N.J., with the Long Branch (N.J.) Daily Record. In 1930, he joined the Ocean City (N.J.) Sentinel Ledger, where he became an editor. While in Ocean City, he also worked as a stringer for the Bulletin, The Inquirer, the New York Times, the Associated Press and United Press International.

As you read this, hundreds of teen-agers around Philadelphia are having conversations about everything from politics to paintball. And they're not in the same room or even on the phone. They are "meeting" in places like Kaos, The Outland and the Cellar - computer bulletin boards, havens for techno-teens who prefer hanging out in cyberspace to hanging out at the mall. Each BBS - short for bulletin board system - can be accessed with a computer and a modem. You dial the number of the BBS, review a list of discussion topics and choose one. Then you can read what others are saying about the topic and add your two cents.

It was so quiet in the Dallas Cowboys' locker room, you could hear a name drop. Buddy Ryan, where are you? The Cowboys say it's not the same preparing for an Eagles game now that you're gone. "I liked Buddy," defensive tackle Danny Noonan said yesterday with a wistful smile. "He was kind of senile, but he was fun. "Whether he was trying to kill one of our kickers or just saying something in the paper about (coach) Jimmy Johnson, Buddy always made these games interesting.

As a journalist, Herb Drill always looked ahead. He made sure he would be remembered - by writing his own obituary, packed with details of his life. Herbert Alan Drill, 71, formerly of Richboro, Bucks County, a freelance journalist and a former reporter for The Inquirer, died of complications from a genetic disease Monday, Feb. 25, at his home in Jacksonville, Fla. He had been ill for several years, his family said. Mr. Drill worked for The Inquirer beginning in 1989, covering suburban business, police, and municipal government, and writing obituaries.

It's not as though I don't see a lot of them often. This building is awash with "boat people" who were cast adrift when The Bulletin folded, and fished out of the drink by the Inquirer and Daily News. But it was fun getting together with former Bulletin colleagues at the new Pen and Pencil Club on 15th Street, north of Spring Garden (yes, oldtimers, the journalistic watering hole has moved from 16th and Chancellor), for the reunion we hold every year on or around Jan. 29, the traumatic day five years ago when The Bulletin published its last edition.

John Joseph Gaffney Jr., a veteran police reporter for the old Bulletin who kept watch over the city from midnight till dawn for 25 years, died Tuesday. He was 80 and lived in Newtown Square, Delaware County. Born in Philadelphia, Gaffney attended West Catholic High School, Haverford High School and the former Mulvey Institute of Journalism. He started his newspaper career on the County Leader in Delaware County before joining the Bulletin. He worked the midnight shift covering police and fire news from old Room 619, the police reporters' room in the days when police headquarters was in City Hall.

As computer bulletin boards grow in popularity, companies that run them hope one day those message centers become America's electronic living room. And one question they face is, what language is spoken at home? Just a few years ago computer bulletin boards were the domain of nerds who wanted to brag to fellow nerds about the stereo receiver they built at home or discuss, for the millionth time, Star Trek's "The Menagerie" episode. Then Prodigy and CompuServe changed everything.

A baker is looking for a Delaware County building zoned for use as a wholesale bakery. A manufacturer is looking for up to 200,000 square feet in Delaware County where it can make durable goods. And a health-care organization is scouting for a Delaware County site for an outpatient clinic. Those are just a few samples of the more than two dozen prospects interested in expanding or relocating in the county, according to the Delaware County Commerce Center's commercial-property bulletin released this week.