The Wake Forest Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Department and the Triangle Special Hockey Association (TSHA) are partnering to bring the Inaugural Carolina Sled Classic to Wake Forest. Free and open to the public, the event will take place Friday through Sunday, March 11 through 13, at the Polar Ice House, located inside The Factory at 1839 South Main Street. TSHA is a hockey league for individuals with developmental or physical disabilities. Sled hockey is a sit-down version of ice hockey designed for players whose disability prevents them from playing stand-up hockey. TSHA is a fully donor-funded and volunteer-operated program offered to families at low or no cost. The Inaugural Carolina Sled Hockey Classic will feature two teams from Florida and one team each from Nashville and Virginia Beach. The Cat5 Canes, Wake Forest’s local sled team, will also participate in the tournament. Mayor Vivian Jones will drop the ceremonial

The Wake Forest Renaissance Centre for the Arts will continue the “Rockin’ the Forest” music series with hardcore honky-tonk music by The Backsliders on Saturday, March 19, at 8 p.m. According to The Backsliders website, the band was formed in 1992 when Steve Howell and Chip Robinson began playing as a guitar-mandolin duet in Raleigh. They soon found themselves wanting to amp up their sound in the spirit of the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Rolling Stones – rock and roll dudes playing country-tinged tunes with just the right amount of attitude. Enter Danny Kurtz on bass, Brad Rice on electric guitar and Jeff Dennis on drums. The line-up of two electric guitars, acoustic guitar, bass and drums became The Backsliders calling card, and the band began drawing legions of local fans to their frenetic live shows. With Rice now in Austin, TX, the new line-up features Greg Rice on keyboards.

The nonprofit community-service Wake Forest Woman’s Club must raise the funds it uses to do good work around Wake Forest. One fundraising effort has members baking and crafting to present tasty and appealing items for sale at Wake Forest High School’s Battalion Bazaar in the school gym on March 12. At the same event, they’ll “dig in” to sell flower bulbs, seeds and plants through Flower Power, a nationally recognized collaboration “planted” by two mail-order gardening companies and now owned by Vesey’s Seeds Ltd. Flower Power allows clubs to sell quality products with the ease of online purchasing, while earning half the profits – profits that Wake Forest Woman’s Club will “plow” into the community through service projects including school tutoring and proctoring, free books in laundromats, an annual scholarship contest for area students, support of the military and first responders, assistance at town events and supporting local helping programs

Committee seeking names of veterans to honor The Wake Forest Memorial Flag-Raising Ceremony that each month, April through October, honors deceased Wake Forest veterans and their families will resume on Monday, April 4, to honor Richard Maxey, who served his nation in the U.S. Marine Corps. At the same time the committee is seeking the names of other deceased veterans who can be honored in the future. The veteran must meet one of the following criteria: 1) joined active duty in Wake Forest, 2) died in Wake Forest, or 3) was a member of a Wake Forest veterans’ organization. If you know of anyone qualifying, please contact the committee chairman, Pete Lambert, at 919-529-3018 or bflambert@mindspring.com. The Town of Wake Forest joins with representatives from American Legion Post 187, American Legion Auxiliary Unit 187, American Legion Riders, VFW Post 8466, the Wake Forest Purple Heart Foundation, Marine Corps League Detachment

The Town of Wake Forest will host the 6th Annual Triangle Bicycle & Pedestrian Workshop on Friday, March 11, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre for the Arts, 405 Brooks Street. The workshop will focus on an array of bicycle and pedestrian topics, including local and statewide initiatives, N.C. Department of Transportation and legislative updates, the Wake County Greenway Plan, Safe Routes to Schools and more. Wake Forest Mayor Jones will begin the program by welcoming the attendees and highlighting several of the town’s bicycle and pedestrian accomplishments. Other speakers will include representatives from the NCDOT – Division of Bicycle and Planning Division, Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO, NC Metropolitan Mayor’s Coalition, Bike Walk NC, and UNC Highway Safety Research Center. The workshop is free and open to everyone, but pre-registration is required. To pre-register, visit www.wakeforestnc.gov/triangle-bicycle-pedestrian-workshop.aspx. Following the workshop, attendees