All graduating seniors in western Price William County are invited to participate in a non-denominational Baccalaureate Service on Sunday, May 19, from 5 to 6 p.m. at Park Valley Church in Haymarket.

Manassas VA CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) is the city’s local program that teaches ordinary people how to safely help in their neighborhoods when an overwhelming emergency requires more than regular 911 responders. The fall series of CERT training sessions starts Thursday, Oct. 4, and there are a few more spots for volunteers, according to Bob Keller, the city’s CERT volunteer coordinator.

Heritage Festival at Prince William Forest Park in Triangle VA on Oct. 13 will feature woodworkers, blacksmiths, and masons demonstrating the crafts that the 2,000 members of the Civilian Conservation Corps used to build the 15,000-acre park in the 1930s. Learn about spy training and Morse Code. Exhibits will highlight the development of the park as a depression-era recreation area and many aspects of 1930s and '40s pop culture.

Woodbridge VA, Gainesville VA and Haymarket VA residents were among the gold medal winners in recent Northern Virginia Senior Olympics swimming competition. Swimming and diving events attracted a record number of competitors, according to Judy Massenby, NVSO spokesman.

Haymarket VA-based Helping Haitian Angels works to help orphans in this country. It will host its second Annual Wine Festival at Barrel Oak Winery on Sept. 22. There will be music, barbeque, a silent auction and, of course, wine. Barrel Oak Winery is located at 3623 Grove Lane in Delaplane, VA.

Prince William County Public Schools has cancelled all after school and evening events Sept. 18 due to potential severe weather.

After mentoring by Joe Jonas, Gainesville VA's Jordan Baird, a pop, R & B and soul singer/songwriter who graduated from Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, will compete with five city winners and 18 television fan-favorites among previous non-winners in the upcoming semifinals that could eventually put him on the path to stardom.

Several local residents have brought home the gold in cycling events in the Northern Virginia Senior Olympics.

Dr. Roger A. Ramsammy has been named provost for NOVA’s Manassas VA campus. He comes to Manassas from Palm Beach State College, Lake Worth, Fla., where he worked for 20 years, most recently as dean of academic affairs.