Oak Ridge Today

ORHS Masquers present a comedy, ‘Dearly Beloved,’ this week

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Dearly Beloved

Oak Ridge High School Masquers, the school’s drama program, will present Jones, Hope, and Wooten’s Texas-sized comedy “Dearly Beloved” for three performances in November. Pictured above are the Futrelle Sisters, from left to right, Twink (Sarah Hepler), Frankie (Mary Kemp), and Honey Raye (Arianna Walker). (Submitted photo)

 

By Ben Fowler

Oak Ridge High School Masquers, the school’s drama program, will present Jones, Hope, and Wooten’s Texas-sized comedy “Dearly Beloved” for three performances in November.

The performances are scheduled for Thursday, November 10, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, November 12 at 7 p.m.; and Sunday, November 13, at 2 p.m., at the Oak Ridge Performing Arts Center, or ORPAC, at Oak Ridge High School.

“Dearly Beloved” is the story of the Frankie, Honey Rae, and Twink as they prepare to throw a wedding for Frankie’s daughter. The Futrelle Sisters try to stay ahead of the Fayro, Texas, rumor mill, but with Frankie’s repeated conversations with her dead mother, Honey Rae’s many trips to the marriage chapel, and Twink’s desperate attempts to get her long-time boyfriend down the aisle for the first time, the odds are against them. Add in their personal tensions of who broke up the Futrelle Sisters’ gospel group, The Sermonettes, and laughter ensues. This southern comedy, filled with crazy family, odd ball love interests, and a nosy neighbor or two, is sure to delight. [Read more…]

Photos: National Merit Semi-finalists, Commended Scholars at ORHS

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Sitting: Abigail Greenhalgh, daughter of Dyrk and Heidi Greenhalgh; Lara Blokland, daughter of Willem and Suzanne Blokland. Standing: Logan Rumbaugh, son of David and Rebecca Bowman (Submitted photo)

National Merit Semi-finalists—Sitting: Abigail Greenhalgh, daughter of Dyrk and Heidi Greenhalgh; Lara Blokland, daughter of Willem and Suzanne Blokland. Standing: Logan Rumbaugh, son of David and Rebecca Bowman (Submitted photo)

 

Here are photos of National Merit Semi-finalists and Commended Scholars at Oak Ridge High School.

Semi-finalists scored in the top 1 percent in the state, while the Commended Scholars scored in the top 2-3 percent in their state on the PSAT test in their junior year. The PSAT is the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. [Read more…]

Roane State, ORHS dual enrollment art program gives students unique experiences, opportunities

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Roane State associate professor of art and design Bryan Wilkerson teaches dual enrollment ceramics at Oak Ridge High School, partnering with ORHS teacher Gisela Schrock. Front from left are student Katie Stewart, Wilkerson, and students Olivia Hoyt and Brennan Whitson. Back, from left, are students Waverly Mullins, Josh Stanfill, Chloe Southmayd, Stevie Logan, Kaitlan Paine, Melena Haynes, Katie Roach and Mary Klages. (Photo by Roane State)

Roane State associate professor of art and design Bryan Wilkerson teaches dual enrollment ceramics at Oak Ridge High School, partnering with ORHS teacher Gisela Schrock. Front from left are student Katie Stewart, Wilkerson, and students Olivia Hoyt and Brennan Whitson. Back, from left, are students Waverly Mullins, Josh Stanfill, Chloe Southmayd, Stevie Logan, Kaitlan Paine, Melena Haynes, Katie Roach, and Mary Klages. (Photo by Roane State)

 

Artists working in ceramics must also be part scientist and part engineer, says Roane State’s Bryan Wilkerson, an associate professor of art and design on the college’s Oak Ridge campus.

Oak Ridge High School students involved in the college’s dual enrollment program in ceramics are mastering those challenges as they mold their artistic skills. They are being supervised and taught by Wilkerson and high school art teacher Gisela Schrock.

Wilkerson and Schrock launched the dual enrollment program after meeting at the Knoxville Museum of Art and becoming friends.

“Gisela and I are very different in how we approach teaching art,” Wilkerson said. “I think it’s good for students to get multiple feedback and instruction, but we also communicate so we’re on the same page.” [Read more…]

Oak Ridge High School receives funding from labor education grant

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Oak Ridge High School will receive $46,000 from a labor education grant, a press release said.

Oak Ridge Schools is one of six regional school districts that have partnered with the East Tennessee Development District, or ETDD; Tennessee College of Applied Technology, Knoxville, or TCAT-K; and eleven employer partners to be included in the most recent Tennessee Labor Education Alignment Program grant, or LEAP 2.0.

Besides Oak Ridge, the school districts include Knox, Alcoa, Blount, Anderson County, and Maryville. The 11 employers include ALCOA, Cherokee Millwright, DENSO Manufacturing, BHS Corrugated, Gerdau Steel, Interstate Mechanical, Shoffner Kalthoff, SL Tennessee, Aisin, Eagle Bend/Magna, and 3M, a press release.

The $46,000 that ORHS will receive will be used to purchase Amatrol tabletop trainers for electronic, pneumatic, and hydraulic systems. Successful students will demonstrate mastery of skills with these system components through Certified Production Technician certification. Dual enrollment courses with TCAT Knoxville will begin in the fall of 2017, the press release said. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge High School students named Siemens Semi-Finalists

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Wilson Huang and Logan Rumbaugh were recognized on Tuesday, October 18, as semi-finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology, the nation's premier research competition for high school students. (Submitted photo)

Wilson Huang and Logan Rumbaugh were recognized on Tuesday, October 18, as semi-finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology, the nation’s premier research competition for high school students. (Submitted photo)

 

Wilson Huang and Logan Rumbaugh were recognized on Tuesday, October 18, as semi-finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology, the nation’s premier research competition for high school students. The Siemens Competition selected only 300 projects from more than 1,600 submissions this year.

As part of the Mathematics, Science, and Computer Science Thesis course at Oak Ridge High School, students spend the summer developing and conducting their research that continues throughout the school year, a press release said. The final product by the end of the year is a professional quality research paper.

Huang and Rumbaugh developed a project titled “Modeling Microscale Collective Motion.” The goal of their project was to model “flocking motion with obstacles,” the press release said.

The team was also able to 3D print a complex microscale model that would exhibit flocking behaviors. [Read more…]

Willow Brook students will perform patriotic music in Veterans Day program

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Students at Willow Brook Elementary School will perform a patriotic music program to celebrate America, our right to vote, and our veterans in a program next week.

The program by second-grade and fourth-grade students is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday, November 7, at Willow Brook Elementary School.

“We would love for community veterans to come and be our special guests,” a press release said. “Please arrive early so you can check in as a Willow Brook guest through our front office prior to show time.”

This press release was submitted by Holly Cross.

Convertible laptops provided to two grades at ORHS as part of Access Oak Ridge

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Convertible laptops were provided to 9th-grade and 10th-grade students at Oak Ridge High School in October as part of Oak Ridge Schools’ digital initiative, which is known as Access Oak Ridge. (Submitted photo)

Convertible laptops were provided to 9th-grade and 10th-grade students at Oak Ridge High School in October as part of Oak Ridge Schools’ digital initiative, which is known as Access Oak Ridge. (Submitted photo)

 

Convertible laptops were provided to 9th-grade and 10th-grade students at Oak Ridge High School in October as part of Oak Ridge Schools’ digital initiative, which is known as Access Oak Ridge.

The roll-out to the two grades at ORHS was launched the week of October 17.

“Through our Access Oak Ridge digital one-to-one initiative, our vision is to empower all Oak Ridge students with equitable access to digital learning opportunities; to innovate, design, collaborate, and ultimately succeed in local and global communities of the future,” a press release said. “This initiative is geared toward increasing opportunities for creativity and out-of-the-box problem solving. In a 1:1 environment, teachers can serve as collaborative facilitators in an atmosphere of timely information gathering and authentic problem-based learning.”

The student laptops or portable devices are also in use or being rolled out in other nearby school districts, including in Anderson County and Clinton. They’ve previously been distributed to students in some other grade levels in Oak Ridge, starting with some students in the city’s two middle schools. [Read more…]

ORHS students place 1st, 2nd in Congressional Medal of Honor Student Art Contest

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Oak Ridge High School students Katie Roach, right, and Asher Chance recently took first and second place in The Congressional Medal of Honor Student Art Contest. (Submitted photo)

Oak Ridge High School students Katie Roach, right, and Asher Chance recently took first and second place in The Congressional Medal of Honor Student Art Contest. (Submitted photo)

 

Oak Ridge High School students Katie Roach and Asher Chance recently took first and second place in The Congressional Medal of Honor Student Art Contest.

Roach, a junior, won first place in the 3-D category with her piece, “Red Heart Turns Purple.”

Chance, a senior, took second place in the 2-D Category with his painting, “My Hand in Liberty.”

These pieces, from the 2015-2016 school year, were submitted by ORHS art teachers Gisela Schrock and Anna Wakefield, respectively. [Read more…]

Early voting update: More than 16,000 have cast ballots in Anderson County

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Information from WYSH Radio

There are now just over three days left in the early voting period in Tennessee for next Tuesday’s presidential and county general elections. Turnout at the polls has been impressive, and that string of robust participation continued on Monday.

In Anderson County on Monday, another 1,356 people voted, bringing the 11-day total, including paper ballots, to 16,370. Anderson County residents can cast ballots at the Clinton Community Center, the Midtown Community Center in Oak Ridge, and at the North Anderson Government Office in the Anderson Crossing Shopping Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today (Tuesday, November 1) through Thursday, November 3. For more, visit www.acelect.com or call (865) 457-6238. [Read more…]

Lockdown lifted at Oak Ridge High School

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A lockdown was lifted at Oak Ridge High School Thursday morning after a staff member called police saying she spotted an unknown person walking outside one of the buildings.

The initial call came into the Oak Ridge Police Department at 10:52 a.m. Thursday, authorities said. The first officers were on scene within minutes and the school was placed on a level three lockdown.

The staff member told officers she saw a man dressed in all black clothing walking by the windows of the Secret City Academy building. She and other staff said they were alarmed after seeing the man act suspiciously, possibly jumping over a fence and several railings, so they called police, a City of Oak Ridge press release said.

ORPD officers searched the exterior school property while the school resource officer assisted staff inside the school. No one was found. Officers believe the person left the area before they arrived. [Read more…]

BBB-TV posts video from Oak Ridge Board of Education candidate forum

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BBB-TV, Channel 12 in Oak Ridge, has posted video from a candidate forum for Oak Ridge Board of Education.

The candidate forum was Thursday, September 29, at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.

There are three candidates for two school board seats in the November 8 election. The candidates are the two incumbents, Keys Fillauer and Angi Agle, and challenger Myra Mansfield.

See the forum in the video below. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge: Driver runs red light, crashes into school bus

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school-bus-crash-oak-ridge-turnpike-georgia-avenue-2-oct-19-2016

No students were injured in a school bus crash on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 19, 2016, when the driver of a car ran a red light and collided with the bus at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Georgia Avenue, the City of Oak Ridge said in a press release. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was updated at 6:10 p.m.

No students were injured in a school bus crash on Wednesday afternoon when the driver of a car ran a red light and collided with the bus, the City of Oak Ridge said in a press release.

The crash was reported at about 12:20 p.m. Wednesday at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Georgia Avenue. A preliminary investigation by Oak Ridge Police Department officers revealed that the driver of a four-door Volkswagen Passat sedan ran the red light, causing a collision with the school bus, the press release said.

There were three children on the bus at the time of the crash, along with the school bus driver. None of them were injured, the city said. [Read more…]