Northwestern State University will host its Spring Cheerleading Clinic Saturday, Feb. 23, for participants in Pre-K through 12th grade.  Participants are invited to attend as a squad or as an individual and will be divided into age groups.

Registration will begin at 8 a.m. in the Health and Human Performance Building. Participants will perform duringhalftime of the Northwestern State basketball game. Participants will receive a t-shirt, snack and a fun-filled day with the Northwestern State cheerleaders. Participantswill receive private coaching, if desired.

Author Melinda Palacio will present a reading at Northwestern State University at 5 p.m. on Tuesday in the Thomas-D’Amato Reading Room in Watson Library. Admission is free. The public is invited to attend.

Palacio is a poet and novelist who lives in Santa Barbara and New Orleans. Her poetry chapbook, “Folsom Lockdown,” won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place 2009 award. She is the author of the novel “Ocotillo Dreams” (ASU Bilingual Press 2011), for which she received the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards and a 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

An exhibition of 12 wooden sculptures by Michael Yankowski is on display in Northwestern State University’s Gallery 2. 

The public is invited to a reception to meet the artist and discuss his work from 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 4. The gallery is on the second floor, Room 200G, of the Creative and Performing Arts building adjacent to the Orville Hanchey Gallery. The exhibition runs Jan. 28-Feb. 14.