If you are tired of seeing the worn grass and litter on the Calvin Jones Highway median, take heart. The state is spending some money to install plantings. More on just exactly what they are planting later.
* * * *  
            Between 450 and 500 people were at the tree seedling giveaway last Saturday, and the Cub Scouts and volunteers and members of the tree board gave away almost all of the 250 Atlantic White Cedars, 500 Eastern Red Cedars, 300 Overcup Oaks, 400 Dogwoods, 400 Eastern Redbuds, 300 Persimmons, and 300 Crape Myrtles, a total of 2,450 trees. The town paid $1,336; $1,020 for the seedlings and $316 for UPS shipping.
* * * *
            It is always fun to look back. Twenty years ago, in 1990, the Wake Forest commissioners chose the site just north of town hall for the new Wake Forest Police Department building, and they also voted four to one to go along with Wake County’s request to rename U.S. 1 as Capital Boulevard.
            Thirty years ago, 1980, the board of trustees for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary had just agreed to spend $75,917 to buy a new 1,000-gallon-per-minute pumper for the Wake Forest Fire Department. Seminary President Randall Lolley said it was part of the seminary’s “community service partnership.”
            In another newsworthy event on the campus that same week, it was announced the Broyhill Foundation of Lenoir had contributed $50,000 toward the restoration of the historic Lea Laboratory, now called Broyhill Hall. Lea Laboratory was built in 1888 with a gift from the Lea Family of Caswell County.
            One of Wake Forest College’s most outstanding presidents, William Louis Poteat, was the son of Caswell County’s wealthiest planters. Dr. Poteat graduated from Wake Forest in 1877 and was hired as a tutor the following year. In 1880 he was hired as an assistant professor of biology and plunged into an exhaustive study of biology and zoology. Studies in Massachusetts and Germany showed him students must explore and research to understand science. As a result, Wake Forest became one of the first in the nation and the first in the south to use scientific laboratory methods as well as the first in the south to have one building, Lea Laboratory, solely for scientific studies. Dr. Poteat guided its design and construction.
            The campus was home to another big event fifty years ago, 1960: a basketball game in Gore Gymnasium honoring the late Coach Murray Greason and featuring a Big Four All-Star Team against the High School All-Stars. The former high school players included George Mackie, Lewis Hooks and Frankie Beddingfield from Wake Forest. They were joined by Jackie Murdock, Lefty Davis, Ernie Wiggins, Al Deporter, Tunny Brooks, Olin Broadway, Dickie Odom and Coach “Bones” McKinney representing Wake Forest College. The players for the Big Four were local boys Twig Wiggins and Jerry Mitchell as well as Dave Budd, George Ritchie, Charlie Forte and Bill Cullen of Wake Forest College along with some former N.C. State players. Ron Shavlik was to coach that team.
            Wake Forest College was already well-established in Winston-Salem by 1960 – the move had been made in 1956 – and the seminary was ending its first decade on the campus, but college memories were strong and bittersweet among town residents.