The baseball, softball and t-ball league is open to youth ages 5 to 14. Birth certificates are required at registration to verify the child’s age. All games are played at Heritage Park Baseball Fields.

The cost to play in any of the Youth Recreation Leagues is $35.00 per child and includes a team shirt and hat.

For more details on Youth Recreation Leagues, please contact the Clarksville Parks and Recreation Office at 931.645.7476 or visit recpro.cityofclarksville.com.

Among the different outdoor activities that the students will have an opportunity to become introduced to will include boating, hunting, trapping, archery, photography, marksmanship, plant identification, forestry, camping, water quality, trap shooting, skeet shooting, wildlife identification, and several classes with wildlife and fishery biology as the topic. The summit is designed to deepen the students’ appreciation for outdoor-related activities.

Once students are accepted to the program, they will be able to attend at least 10 classes during the week. During this week, the students will have the opportunity to gain certification in many different programs. TOYS will provide youth opportunities to learn more in depth about hunting, fishing, and shooting. Students, who are interested in a career in the natural resources field, will also enjoy the experiences that normally are not learned until they are members of the work force.

The TWRA is hosting TOYS in cooperation with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Foundation (TWRF).

The cost to attend TOYS is $300.00 for the week-long experience. Scholarships are available and based on financial need.

Students interested in attending should log on to www.tnwildlife.org and submit an application by May 11th, 2012. Applicants will be required to pay a deposit of $150.00 to the TWRF. Students wishing to receive a scholarship only need to submit an application form indicating that they want a scholarship.

Enrollment is limited to 120 students and if an application is not accepted, refunds will be returned in full. If an application is chosen, the successful applicant will be sent a password and web address to the location of the scheduling packet. Students will select their classes of interest and pay the balance of the cost of the program.

]320left]Students will be housed in a hotel in Clarksville and bused each day to the complex. All meals are covered in the fee.

Students will be assigned a roommate with two students to a room. If applicants have someone they know they would prefer as a roommate, it should be indicated on the application. Applications can be downloaded from www.tnwildlife.org or www.twrf.net.

Parents or guardians will be required to bring students into town on Sunday night and pick them up either Friday night at the awards ceremony or the following morning. Rooms will be available, for a fee, if parents wish to attend the banquet Friday evening and stay the night. Students will be required to be picked up by 10:00am on (Saturday) June 16th.

For questions or additional information, contact Jereme Odom at 615.781.6500, extension 2102, or email, Jereme..

This year’s banquet, which will honor all coaches in the Clarksville-Montgomery County area, will feature former Vanderbilt standout and current record-holder, Barry Booker.

Booker was a starting guard for three years earning Academic All-SEC Honors and he was named the University’s Most Outstanding Student-Athlete his senior year. He still holds the University and SEC all-time career three-point shooting percentage record — 46%.

Barry Booker

Booker has worked as an Analyst for SEC basketball broadcasts since 1993. In recent years, he has worked as a Commentator for the SEC Network, ESPNU, CBS Sports, and various media outlets.

Any coaches who were actively coaching in the Clarksville-Montgomery County area in 2011 are invited to stop by the Clarksville Parks & Recreation Office, located at 102 Public Square, to pick up a ticket for this free event. Tickets can be picked up between 8:00am and 4:30pm no later than Thursday, March 8th for the first 200 coaches.

For more details on the Clarksville Sports Festival, please contact the Clarksville Parks and Recreation Office at 931.645.7476 or visit recpro.cityofclarksville.com.

Clarksville, TN – The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, February 15th at the Bone & Joint Center, 980 Professional Park Drive, right across the street from Gateway Hospital. This is just off Dunlop Lane and Holiday Drive and only a few minutes east of Governor’s Square mall. The meeting begins at 7:00pm and is always open to the public. Members please bring a friend or two – new recruits are always welcomed.

The meetings topic is “Nashville – Siren’s Song of the Confederacy”

Nashville then became the focus of no less than five Confederate offensives to capture it either directly, or indirectly, which dominated Confederate strategy in the west for the rest of the war.

In essence, this telegraphed the Southern playbook to the Union Army so that they were able to make their own plans to retain hold of the city. Beginning in April 1862 and ending in December 1864, with the Confederate Army of Tennessee literally on the doorstep, Nashville remained in Union hands, becoming the major supply depot for all western campaigns conducted by their army.

Our speaker, CWRT president Greg Biggs, will detail the importance of Tennessee and Nashville before going into each of the campaigns to retake the city by the Confederates. Some of these offensives might be a surprise considering where they went, but part of their goal was getting Nashville back. The program will analyze these movements and the corresponding events after they failed.

Greg Biggs, president of the Clarksville CWRT, is also a flag historian, tour guide and research historian for some notable authors. He has lectured across the country to CWRTs, conferences and other history groups and has lead tours for many of them as well as the US Army.

Please join us for Greg Biggs and his program on the attempts to retake Nashville, Tennessee.

Please join us for another informative meeting of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable.

Directed by and featuring Ryan Bowie, along with Heather Anderson, Josh Bernaski and Ashley Laverty, this celebration of the mating game explores the journey from dating and waiting to love and marriage, and reveals the agonies and triumphs of in-laws and newborns, trips in the family car and pick-up techniques of the geriatric set.

"I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" opens Friday, February 10th at the Roxy Regional Theatre.

The performance on Saturday, February 11th, is part of our “Martinis at the Roxy” evening. Beginning at 6:30pm, patrons will enjoy drinks complemented by a menu featuring antipasto, smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, blackberry chipotle chutney served over cream cheese, fruit skewers, and an array of desserts including raspberry tiramisu bites, sparkly cheesecake-stuffed strawberries, brownie turtle bites, red velvet cake balls, and bite-size chocolate chip cookies. The performance of “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” will follow at 8:00pm. Tickets for this event are $50.00.

The cast of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change", (L to R) Ryan Bowie, Heather Anderson, Ashley Laverty and Josh Bernaski.

“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” runs February 10th through March 3rd, playing Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:00pm and Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, with a 2:00pm matinee on Saturday, February 18th.

Tickets are $20.00 (adults) and $15.00 (ages 13 and under) and may be purchased online at www.roxyregionaltheatre.org, by phone at 931.645.7699, or at the theatre during regular box office hours (9:00am to 2:00pm, Monday through Friday). Friday, February 10th, is our regular pay-what-you-can night; all tickets not pre-sold at the regular ticket price go on sale at 7:30pm for whatever price you wish to pay.

Classes are held Monday through Saturday from 8:00am until 9:00am. The price is $10.00 per class, or $40.00 for the entire week.

The Roxy Regional Theatre is located at 100 Franklin Street in Downtown Clarksville Tennessee. Box office hours are 9:00am to 2:00pm, Monday through Friday. The website is www.roxyregionaltheatre.org. For more information on classes call 931.645.7699.

To schedule a private or small group session, please contact Travis directly at www.traviskendrick.com

But attempting to rank poets and poetry in this way is a bit unseemly, so one is forced to judge the man on his work. That’s where Collins stands out, using a light touch to suddenly transform a humorous piece into something serious.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins

At 7:30pm on March 16th, Collins will visit Austin Peay State University for a free reading in the Music/Mass Communication Building’s Concert Hall. The event is sponsored by the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts.

Collins is the author of nine collections of poetry, and his work has appeared in such esteemed literary publications as The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The American Scholar. He is a Guggenheim fellow, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts fellow, a New York Public Library “Literary Lion” and recipient of the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize and the Levinson Prize. In January 2004, he was named New York State Poet Laureate, and 10 months later, he was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry.

For more information on Collins or his upcoming reading, please contact the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at 931.221.7876.

Singers and dancers from all across Tennessee and Kentucky will be vying for a coveted spot at the annual Rivers and Spires showcase held each year in Historic Downtown Clarksville.

Auditions will be held on March 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st. Auditions are by appointment only. Call Kelly Maselli at 931.320.7368 or Samantha Maselli at 931.278.7264 to schedule your appointment. Entrants must provide accompaniment music CD (without vocals) or any musical instrument needed. A CD player, guitar amp and microphones will be provided.

“Gateway to Stardom” & “Aspire to Stardom” are non-profit talent competitions that are held in Clarksville, TN two times a year. These shows strive to bring Tennessee and Kentucky’s most talented kids into the spotlight and give them a chance to showcase their talent. The best part of all is that this show is free to all participants.; free to audition, free to perform and free exposure.

The Lucky Chosen Ones will perform not only to all festival goers at Rivers & Spires (April) and RiverFest (September), but also to Talent Agents and Managers who can help them pursue a career in singing and dancing. The audition judges sit through hours and hours of performances. Only 25-30 children are chosen from the 1000’s of hopefuls who audition. The lucky ones get to showcase their talents at Rivers & Spires or RiverFest in front of large crowds, Recording Stars, TV crews and Talent Scouts and Managers.

[320left]Since many of the children have no formal training and are going on just raw talent, this is a HUGE step for them and many go on to become professional entertainers. These shows are changing the lives of children, giving them a venue to perform and helping them to connect with those that truly can help them enter the “Gateway to Stardom”.

For more information about “Aspire to Stardom”, contact Kelly Maselli at 931.320.7368 or Samantha Maselli at 931.278.7264 go to the Rivers and Spires website: www.riversandspires.com or visit us on Facebook at Gateway to Stardom.

“It’s based on a Russian folk tale about a soldier on leave who unknowingly makes a deal with the devil,” Dr. Gregory Wolynec, APSU associate professor of music, said. “It’s based on the basic moral that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

“During graduate school, I had the opportunity to do the suite, and I’ve always wanted to do the full performance,” Wolynec said. “By being involved in the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, I got in touch with Marcus Hayes (associate professor of dance) and said this would be an interesting collaboration between our two departments.”

“Greg says Stravinsky, and I’m there,” Hayes added. “When you say Stravinsky to a dance person, they’re there. I was instantly interested in working with it. The more I get into it, I’m finding all these layers. It’s really beautiful.”

Stravinsky wrote the piece following a highly successful period in his career, when he composed masterworks such as “The Firebird” and “The Rite of Spring” ballets. With the war in Europe ending and money tight, he scaled back this new composition, opting to write it for a chamber group of seven instruments – clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin, bass and percussion.

“The music is very approachable but very different,” Wolynec said. “He took textures, which has to do with the way different layers of sound are put together, back to the time of Bach, Mozart and Haydn. He’s also starting to get fascinated with jazz.”

The Gateway Chamber Orchestra will be on the Concert Hall stage, performing in the midst of the dancing and acting. For Hayes, who is directing and choreographing the production, the work lends itself to showcasing these different artistic elements.

[320left]“The way that it’s written, it kind of oscillates between the acting and the dancing and the music,” he said. “There are times when the stage goes dark and we focus on the musicians and times when the musicians provide the tapestry for what’s happening.”

Tickets to this performance are $5.00 for adults, $3.00 for military and students and free for APSU faculty, staff and students.

For more information on “The Soldier’s Tale,” contact the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at 931.221.7876.

Carolyn Stier Ferrell will be available to sign copies of her most recent book, “Occupied: The Story of Clarksville, Tennessee During the Civil War.”

Fort Defiance Civil War Park & Interpretive Center

For a more information, please visit www.fortdefianceclarksville.com or call 931.472.3351.