The Wake Forest Lions Club will serve up a pancake breakfast at 7 a.m. on Saturday, May 17, at Heritage High School in Wake Forest. Breakfast plates are available in exchange for a donation to the American Cancer Society.  For more information, contact Marty Coward at 919-792-0316 or go online to www.NorthernWakeRelay.org.

High-school juniors Tyler Bendl of Wake Forest and Dillan Phillips of Louisburg have been selected by Wake Electric to attend the 2014 Rural Electric Youth Tour in Washington D.C. in June. Bendl 16, is a student at Heritage High School. Phillips, 17, attends Louisburg High School. The two will join nearly 1,500 students from across the United States for a one-week all expenses paid trip to the nation’s capital. Both students will also receive a $1,000 scholarship in their high school senior year upon enrollment in a college or university. While on the Youth Tour, Bendl and Phillips will learn about electric cooperatives, American history and the United States government. Youth Tour participants will also visit the historic sites of the nation’s capital, as well as spend time with their congressional leaders.  The trip will be from June 14-20, 2014. For more information on the Rural Electric Youth Tour, visit

Wake Forest people began burying their loved ones in Wake Forest Cemetery before there was a town by that name, and it is still the chosen final resting place for many. Along with its history – the college presidents and professors buried there as well as town notables – the cemetery is a delight because of its specimen trees, its landscaping and its air of quiet reverence. You can experience it Saturday, May 10, when the town’s Cemetery Advisory Board hosts the annual cemetery tour from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The rain date is May 17. Once again family members and volunteers will be at many of the graves to talk about those buried there and sometimes exhibit photographs or other memorabilia. Frank Powell and other members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans will be on hand to talk about the local soldiers who served in the War Between

On Saturday, May 10, the Wake Forest Garden Club will host its annual Mad Hatters’ Garden Party at the Wake Forest Historical Museum on North Main Street. The event will include the Mad Hatters’ Tea and Garden Seminars from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; an Art and Garden Market and a Classic Car Show from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and the drawing of winning tickets for the Mad Hatters’ Raffle at 4 p.m. You’re invited to join us for a plated “afternoon” tea and two garden seminars at the Wake Forest Historical Museum. Wear your own “Mad Hat” and receive a free raffle ticket.  The seminars will take place at 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Karen Diebolt will demonstrate how to make exquisite gifts using colored foam and flowers and Trisha Bell, a local gardening expert, will talk about gardening in small spaces.  Tickets for the tea and seminars

Weeping and contorted trees I guess I am just twisted. I love weeping and contorted trees. Let me introduce you to some garden-worthy specimens beyond Harry Lauders Walking Stick and the Weeping Yaupon Holly. Don’t get me wrong- both are must-haves, at least in my garden, but there is so much more out there. Walker’s Siberian Pea Shrub Caragaca arborescens ‘Walker’ This stiffly weeping specimen was selected by Dr. John Walker of the Morden Arboretum Research Station in Manitoba Canada in 1975. It has been grafted onto an upright standard because it would simply crawl along the ground otherwise. The branches have the curious ability to grow quickly downward only to slow down when nearing the ground. This allows for easy under-planting. The foliage is light green and very feathery. Yellow flowers appear in early spring. It looks great planted in front of dark green evergreens or a white wall.

In early April a new schedule was announced for the four local bridge replacement projects that will affect drivers, school bus routes and normal patterns for hundreds of people. The good news is that, when it is complete, Rogers Road will be five lanes wide from South Franklin Street to Heritage Lake/Forestville Road, relieving the serious school congestion in the area because of the entrance to Heritage Elementary and Heritage Middle schools just west of the bridge. The North Carolina Department of Transportation agreed with the town’s request to hasten its widening of the road, which was planned for 10-15 years down the road, to coincide with the replacement of the Rogers Road bridge over Smith Creek, but because of the time it will take to obtain all the right-of-way for the widening, the bridge replacement has been moved back from 2015 to 2016. The plan has been to close

*The Wake Forest Farmers Market will be open its regular summer hours, 8 a.m. to noon, on Saturday, April 26, in the parking lot behind CVS. *Meet in the Street will feature Hurricane hockey players, food trucks, a beer garden, live music, a children’s carnival and over 100 artists and artisans in downtown Wake Forest from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 3. *Six Sundays in Spring, the series of six free outdoor concerts in E. Carroll Joyner Park, will continue Sunday, May 4, with Wake Forest native Suzanna Bridges reprising her days as an aspiring singer with Walking for Pennies. See more information in this week’s issue. *The Wake Forest Town Board will hold its monthly work session Tuesday, May 6, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in town hall. It is televised on Channel 10. *The Wake Forest Planning Board will hold its regular meeting Tuesday, May 6,