Wynnewood

Young Catholics from throughout the region gathered yesterday afternoon to mark the 200th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, enjoying games, food and music. The festival was held on the grounds of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, where 3,000 to 4,000 people attended a Mass celebrated on the front lawn by Cardinal Justin Rigali and retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. The aim of the event was to get youths to recognize the history and tradition of the church, said the Rev. Joseph McLoone, 44, pastor at St. Katharine Drexel in Chester and the festival's coordinator.

As a little girl growing up in South Philadelphia, Rita Bocher - then Rita Bonaccorsi - had a pivotal role in her family's Christmas celebration: setting up the creche, or Nativity scene, beneath the family tree. From this role sprang her interest in the tradition of the creche, its history and its artistry. Today, although she has by some standards only a small collection of creches, 15, she is the founder and editor of the Creche Herald, a quarterly newsletter for collectors.

An $87 million project to dramatically upgrade clinical and lobby facilities at Lankenau Hospital here is poised to begin moving from drawing board toward reality this year. An estimated $75 million for this construction, initially announced last summer when officials outlined their strategic plan, will come from the nonprofit Lankenau Foundation, which supports hospital programs. The rest is to come from fund-raising and revenues. Officials also want to add a fifth and sixth floor to Lankenau's four-story Pew wing, to house an additional 94 in-patient beds.

Tyler Schwartz stood on a wooden baseball mound and, in his best Charlie Brown voice, lamented the loss of yet another game. The 17-year-old from Ardmore was portraying the embattled comic strip hero recently during a rehearsal of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, scheduled to open next weekend as the first show at the Wolf Performing Arts Center. Advising from the wings was Bobbi Wolf, the center's founder and artistic education director. "I feel there is a strong need for a positive theater environment for kids who love to sing, dance and act. Many kids want to be in more than the one school show a year," Wolf said.

Surgery, homemade chicken soup with stars, and the presence of her favorite stuffed animal Barrett the Parrot couldn't save Muffin the miniature schnauzer. Early Monday morning, four days after a vicious attack by her notorious Wynnewood neighbor, Rocky the German shepherd, Muffin died at the University of Pennsylvania veterinary hospital. But she did not die in vain. Citing police reports from four other victims, Muffin's owner, Janis Peterson, persuaded the Montgomery County courts to step in against Rocky, an 80-pound beast with a rap sheet that would make a pit bull blush.

The Jews of Kisvarde knew they were going to die. It was 1944, and the little village in Hungary had so far been spared. With the war coming to an end, the Nazis were speeding up their campaign of extermination. "The Hungarian Jews were the last to be killed because Hungary wanted to keep control of them," said Joseph Finkelstein, a member of Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Wynnewood. "But now, the gas chambers were working night and day. " Kisvarde, with a population of 20,000, was home to a thriving population of 3,500 Jews, who worshiped in 12 synagogues.

Hanukah will be celebrated Sunday with a torch run at 4:30 p.m. at the Kaiserman Jewish Community Center, 45 Haverford Rd., Wynnewood. The run along Haverford Avenue, with police escort, is open to the community. Craft and gym activities will be held inside for children who are not running. At 5:30 p.m., the Baal Shem Tov Rock Band will perform and a dinner of Israeli salads, bagels and latkes will be served. The cost is $5 for adults and $3 for children under 12. Reservations are required.

If not for a brave boy and a miraculous computer, there might be no bat mitzvah for Leah Zatuchni. Virtually from birth 13 years ago, the Wynnewood girl has suffered from a brain disorder called mitochondrial myopathy that impedes the flow of oxygen to her muscles. She can neither walk nor talk - nor, as logic would have it, participate in the Jewish service marking her entry into womanhood. But that is not how Eugene Chernyakhofsky would have had it. A Northeast Philadelphia teenager with cerebral palsy, he took part in his bar mitzvah on May 3, 1992, with the aid of a computer, manipulating a joystick with his foot to produce the required words, songs and chants.

Many computer users may dislike registering to enter various Web sites and having to remember user identifications and passwords. But time-pressed doctors dislike it even more, according to one high-tech doorman. That is why Douglas McCormick set out to linkInternet-savvy doctors with sources of information on the World Wide Web about new medical devices, drugs and related products. His goal was to identify online users as health-care professionals without divulging names, locations, or other personal details that might trigger a flood of sales calls to the time-starved.

Wynnewood, Gibbsboro, Camden County Something different is happening in Gibbsboro, a quiet little South Jersey community just outside of Voorhees, where some of the homes date back 200 years. Elegant new houses on beautifully landscaped, wooded lots are under construction at Wynnewood, a development by Pulte Homes. "We found this by accident," said Rich Uhorchuk, a new Wynnewood home owner. Uhorchuk and his wife, Gayl, moved to Wynnewood with their teenage daughter, the youngest of their three children, last December.