As of this writing, the outcome of this week's Wake County school board race is still not known. Political junkies have targeted Oct. 6 for some time, knowing that this year's school board race, more than any in a generation, could have a profound affect on education policy in this county.

Growth and diversity have been buzzwords in the school system for a long time and voters generally come down in one of two camps-- they either hate the idea of sending their children off to a school that isn't the closest to their home, or they just don't care how the school system goes about its business as long as their child learns something every day.

If the politics of education isn't your cup of tea, there's still more excitement on the political front this week.

Candidates for the Wendell town board will gather Thursday night at the Wendell Community Center for what figures to be an interesting converation about, yep, you guessed it, growth.

Now, none of the candidates want to stop growth. The issue in Wendell seems to be what kind of growth we want. And, yes, everyone would love to have a multi-million dollar plant open its doors and provide folks with jobs. Any, yes, everyone would love to have residential subdivisions with $300,000, $400,000 or half-million dollar homes in Wendell. The issue is, what happens while town leaders wait for those days to arrive. Should the town continue to approve residential development of the smaller, less-expensive variety?

There are seven candidates running for three seats in Wendell. Only one of the three incumbents chose to run, so there will be a minimum of two new commissioners come December. Several candidates were at last weekend's Harvest Festival, campaigning for votes.

If you'd like to hear what the candidates have to say, come to the Community Center at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday). You can meet the candidates. Then at 7 p.m. you can listen to them as they answer questions submitted by readers of this newspaper.

On another campaign note, the date for the Zebulon candidate forum has been changed because of a conflict with Police Night Out.

The rescheduled affair will be held Oct. 14, a day later than previously planned. There will be a reception at 6:30 followed by the forum itself at 7 p.m. The location -- the new Zebulon Town Hall-- is also unchanged.

And if you live in Knightdale or Zebulon, it's still not too late to take part in the event. Just submit a question to be included in the box from which queries will be drawn at random.