Thirty shows. Five venues. Five days. Em Piro, founder of the St. Lou Fringe Festival, has upped the ante for the second annual extravaganza in midtown St. Louis, which will occur from Thursday, June 20 through Monday, June 24.

There were merely seven Mexican gray wolves left worldwide in 1971. Today, the population is past 300 living in captivity, with more than 70 additional wolves living in the wild, thanks to Missouri’s Endangered Wolf Center.

Weather conditions and human activities affect the population of monarchs. And according to Dr. Chip Taylor, a continued decline could mean the migration of these butterflies could be lost.

For the past few days, it was hard to ignore the world of sports—even if you’re not a sports fan. Whether you like basketball or baseball, it was good to be a Cardinals fan this week: The Louisville Cardinals claimed the NCAA Men’s Basketball title, a game that became the most watched in 19 years. And of course, this week also brought us Opening Day at Busch Stadium, which, for Cardinal Nation, is an event in itself—and that’s a good thing because…well, you know what happened there.

CITY ACADEMY received a $1 million gift from the Crawford Taylor Foundation for endowment. The gift supports the school’s efforts to offer an expanded Early Childhood Program. With the help of this grant, plans to expand to a total of 175 students by 2014 are in place. Pictured: D’Niya Ammons, Chantell Johnson and Chontell Johnson of City Academy's new Early Childhood Program.

When British Royal Navy officer Captain George Vancouver arrived in this slice of Canadian heaven in 1792, he was transfixed by what he saw.

Ely Comerio Anderson was living in Baton Rouge, La., and visiting her parents in St. Louis when she met Edward Patrick 'Ted' Thurmond on a blind date. The two hit it off right away and ended up closing the restaurant down at 1:00 a.m. The two were engaged at the Saint Louis Club after what Ely jokingly describes as “a series of deceptions.”

Some places just make you want to smile. Nova Scotia is one of those places. Halifax, the capital of the province, is the perfect anchor city for exploring; and The Prince George Hotel is the perfect place to stay.

THE REPERTORY THEATRE OF ST. LOUIS has sent one of its own to Gambia, Africa, to teach girls there the art of live theatre. The Rep’s director of education, MARSHA COPLON, is traveling as a volunteer with Starfish International.

Hurricane Ophelia and a pervasive northern low decided to join us on an early October drive from Nova Scotia to St. Andrews By- The-Sea in New Brunswick...

What a wondrous spring we had—although allergy sufferers may disagree. It came on early, strong and stayed around a whole lot longer than usual. I’m talking about that powdery pollen that coats your car in an envelope of green fog and lines your window sills daily, scoffing at your attempts to clean them. It also wreaks havoc on your sinuses. Yes, this is the time of the year where a human condition often gets transposed to a pet condition. It is easy to do, but it’s likely not the same type of illness/allergy.

You probably know of The Racquet Club, the Bogey Club and the Log Cabin Club—all long-cherished institutions where some of the most prominent residents of Ladue have been loyal members for generations. But in the I’ll-bet-youdidn’t-know-that department, there’s another, lesser-known club that’s been building a tradition of its own: the Ladue Hunting and Fishing Club.

Story: More than 30 artists, acrobats, dancers, riders and musicians from Canada, France, Belgium, Morocco, Poland, Moldavia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the United States perform with four dozen horses representing 10 different breeds in a two-act extravaganza conceived by the folks behind Cirque du Soleil.

Once a week for two years, Azar Nafisi clandestinely met with seven of her most dedicated female students in her home in Tehran, Iran, to study Western titles by authors like Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Muriel Spark and Vladimir Nabokov.

When Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney declared Let’s put on a show!, they gave a voice to the dreams of every young singer, dancer and thespian. If there’s a child in your family with stars in their eyes, performing arts organizations in the St. Louis area offer a multitude of educational programs for kids of all ages and aspirations.

Elegant, showy orchids have some of the most detailed flowers ever seen. The stunning blossoms last for weeks, even as cut stems. Despite their reputation for being finicky, they can make great houseplants.

The year 2011 yielded an abundance of significant news in local theater. Eleven presentations stood out above the rest. In ascending order, here’s a list of the year’s best productions:

A hilltop castle surrounded by fluffy white snow and overlooking the majestic Saint Lawrence River, glittering Christmas trees and a cuddly Bernese dog named Santol greeting you in the lobby, a sumptuous six-course dinner dance in the elegant Grand Ballroom...

Forty-four years ago, when the St. Louis Blues skated onto the ice for the very first time at the old Arena, Bobby Plager was right in the middle of the action: He turned opposing players upside down with his patented hip checks and blocked shots, and threw many a mean right-hand punch. He recorded the team’s first assist, first penalty and the first game misconduct.

Story: Physicist Martin Townsend and his wife Kate, transplanted Iowans, arrive in Detroit in 1967 for a job Martin has taken at a local university. Looking for a place to live, they are put in contact with realtor Sol Rifkin, who shows them a beautiful and stately, two-story home in his own urban neighborhood, Palmer Park. The Townsends are stunned at the relatively low cost of the house until Sol explains that the race riots in Detroit have spurred many white families to flee their upper-middle-class enclave for the suburbs.

November marks National Bread Month, so what better way to celebrate than to learn more about some of our local bakeries’ bread-making traditions?

The week before last, I watched President Obama deliver an address to a joint session of Congress in a bid to revive the economy with another stimulus package. The president, as our country’s quarterback, finds himself fourth and long with the need to call a play with a high probability for success. Almost two years earlier to the day (on Sept. 9, 2009), the same man stood in the same place before many of the same political leaders. “We did not come here just to clean up a crisis,” the president said. “We came here to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future—and that is the issue of health care.”

The information highway of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was quite different than what we know today with the Internet, Twitter and Facebook. Still a rather young nation, we were content to be exploring America’s terra firma, creating highways to get people and products to and from one area or coast to another. That is where James J. Hill comes in.