Randy McNally
John Ragan
This year’s Breakfast with the Legislators kicks off Monday.
Breakfast with the Legislators is a monthly morning meeting with state legislators from Oak Ridge and Anderson and Roane counties. It’s held the first few months each year while the Tennessee General Assembly is in session in Nashville.
It includes brief updates of the legislative session from local legislators and a question-and-answer session with those who attend. It’s open to the public. [Read more…]
Ron Woody
By Ron Woody, writing in the January 2015 “County Executive’s Newsletter to the County Commission”
“Next Six Month Challenges”
As we begin the next calendar year, we thought it would be appropriate to identify some challenges which will come before commission in the next six months. As always, the beginning of the calendar year starts the annual budget process. Commission has made many major steps over the last number of years in establishing a more formal budget development process as budget focus has been divided into operating budgets and capital budget. We are not to the point we should be yet in both funding and understanding, but much as been accomplished and that I call a success.
Now to our six-month challenges:
Image courtesy National Weather Service in Morristown.
Anderson County Schools will be closed Friday, January 16, due to icy conditions in many parts of the county, officials said. The Central office will follow the inclement weather procedure.
Clinton City Schools will also be closed Friday, January 16, because of the expected weather conditions, officials said.
The forecast near Oak Ridge calls for decreasing clouds and a low of 29 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday night. Friday is expected to be sunny, with a high near 47 and a calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph.
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, U.S. senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, and U.S. representatives Chuck Fleischmann and John J. Duncan Jr., all Republicans, released statements or commented on the East Tennessee visit by President Barack Obama, a Democrat, on Friday and his proposal to make the first two years of community college free to responsible students. Pellissippi State Community College President Anthony Wise and Roane State Community College President Chris Whaley also released statements or commented on the visit and education proposal.
The president’s proposal, America’s College Promise, will be proposed in his State of the Union on January 20, and it is modeled after the Tennessee Promise.
Here’s what the officials from Tennessee said:
Governor Bill Haslam was among the Tennessee leaders who received praise from the president during Obama’s 5.5-hour visit to East Tennessee on Friday. (Photo by Rob Welton)
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam
The president recognizes that good things are happening in Tennessee. We are proud of the Tennessee Promise. It is changing the culture of expectations in Tennessee by encouraging more students to pursue a certificate or degree beyond high school. The Tennessee Promise is focused not just on access but success in terms of making certain that students actually attain their degree. We think having a mentor available for the students is an important part of achieving that success.
Regarding the specifics of the president’s plan, we look forward to seeing more details in the coming days about the cost of the program and how it will be covered. [Read more…]
Stability and growth of that complex system called a community depends on honesty, equality, fairness, balance, foresight, continuity, healthy relationships, maturity, safety, common goals, and recognizable successes shared among all community members and good leadership.
Industry and government facilities were having great difficulty attracting highly educated and qualified professionals to Oak Ridge despite competitive salaries in the new millennium. One of the attractions that might help this problem was thought to be the existence of superior schools for the children of those professionals, combined with attractive, upscale housing.
As is so typical in Oak Ridge, many bright minds saw only their need and targeted the solution they hypothesized would make it work. Also, as so often happens with brilliant focused minds, the complexity of the economic and social organization, its influence, and the needs of the whole community were not factored into the equation. There was an assumption that the hypothesis of good schools, combined with an abundance of attractive housing, would solve the problem. So, $67 million was spent on building and equipping a state-of-the-art high school with amenities usually limited to high-priced, private, college prep schools. This, despite the critical need for a new preschool facility having been very high on the official city list of capital needs for over a decade. [Read more…]
Ray Smith
The Manhattan Project National Historical Park will be the focus of the Wednesday luncheon meeting of Altrusa International of Oak Ridge.
Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, will be discussing the honor and importance in having a national park site in Oak Ridge, a press release said. Smith’s presentation will include the potential implications of a national park site in Oak Ridge as well as the probable timeframe for implementation of the national park bill, the release said.
Smith will be covering the potential meaning of the park for the City of Oak Ridge, the American Museum of Science and Energy, the Y-12 National Security Complex Calutrons, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Graphite Reactor, and the East Tennessee Technology Park’s Heritage Center K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Building site. Smith will also discuss how the newly renovated Guest House at the Alexander Inn in Oak Ridge might contribute to the overall national park strategy. [Read more…]
With help from two Oak Ridgers, a team of students from the University of Tennessee recently captured second place at the Student Cluster Competition in New Orleans.
Part of the SC14 Supercomputing Conference, the competition is a real-time, non-stop, 48-hour challenge in which teams of undergraduates, high school students, or both assemble a small computer cluster on the exhibit floor and then race to demonstrate the greatest sustained performance across a series of applications while staying under a 3,120-watt power limit.
One of the team members is Erik Blokland, an Oak Ridge graduate, and the other is Vincent Jodoin, who is a junior at Oak Ridge High School and helping the team. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge branch of the International Taoist Tai Chi Society offers a Health Recovery class. (Submitted photo)
By Marian Varner
January—it’s a time when many of us think about our health objectives for the coming year. We would all like to enjoy good health, but sometimes that is not easy. For some, finding an interesting, fun exercise can be a challenge. Tai Chi is one exercise option that even those who experience health difficulties of various kinds can try.
The Oak Ridge branch of the International Taoist Tai Chi Society has been teaching Tai Chi locally for about 30 years. This charitable organization includes a Health Recovery class as one of its offerings, in addition to the usual beginner and continuing classes. The Health Recovery class enables students to work with various exercises, adapted to whatever limitations each student has.
Tai Chi is known for improving the health of its practitioners in numerous ways. Most students of this ancient Chinese art discover better balance, increased flexibility, and relief from stress. With regular practice of Tai Chi, students have reported improvement in conditions such as high blood pressure, arthritis, back pain, low spirits, joint immobility, respiratory problems, digestive disorders, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, the long-term consequences of trauma or stroke, and fibromyalgia. [Read more…]
Roane State webmaster Jeremy Pulcifer mentors second-graders during Hour of Code at Glenwood Elementary School. (Photo by Roane State)
Learning to code teaches students more than they realize, and they have fun at the same time.
That is why the week-long Hour of Code campaign last month was a valuable experience for elementary school students in Oak Ridge.
“Kids learn best with games,” said Aleshia Wensell, K-4 technology teacher at Glenwood Elementary School. “When they can have fun with learning, they learn faster and have a deeper understanding. That’s what code does. Students are doing a process of elimination. They are doing higher thinking skills. All of this is important for their math or reading comprehension. Code helps in all aspects of their education.”
Glenwood, Linden Elementary School, Willow Brook Elementary School and Woodland Elementary School hosted activities for Hour of Code, a nationwide initiative to excite children about computer science. Code.org, a nonprofit organization that promotes computer science education, provided Hour of Code resources for educators. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge High School students Keegan Yearwood and Camille Mauk-Olson know the best way to beat the winter chill: Dine and Donate! By dining out at Dean’s Restaurant and Bakery on Monday, January 12, the pair get to choose from a variety of hot home-cooked favorites including savory beef pot roast, pulled park barbecue, and turkey and dressing. Dean’s is located in Jackson Square. (Photo courtesy ADFAC)
On Monday, January 12, several local restaurants will donate a portion of their sales to support Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties, or ADFAC. As the first ‘Dine and Donate’ of the new year, this special event gives local residents the opportunity to start off 2015 by supporting local eateries as well as raising funds to help the needy in our community.
Restaurants participating on Monday, January 12 are:
A memorial road ride honoring Michael Biegalski, an avid athlete and Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher, started Sunday morning near Whippoorwill Drive and Wisconsin Avenue.
Michael Biegalski was an avid athlete and a research and development staff member at the Center for Nanophase Materials Science at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy ORNL)
The local cycling community is having memorial rides this weekend in honor of Michael Biegalski, an avid athlete and Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher who recently died in a tragic mountain biking accident at Haw Ridge.
On Saturday, top athletes from the community rode the North Boundary and Black Oak Ridge trails.
On Sunday, they’re riding the My Larry/Brushy Mountain “prison loop.” It’s a road ride. Like Saturday’s ride, it will depart from the Westwood neighborhood.
The rides are in memory of Michael, who competed in road, mountain, and cyclocross racing and was passionate about big climbs and endurance riding, Amy Biegalski said. [Read more…]
President Obama is seen in the back of the presidential limousine. (Photo by John Westcott)
Many people took pictures and videos when President Obama’s motorcade passed through Oak Ridge, Clinton, and Anderson County on Friday afternoon.
Here are a few, including several by John Westcott and Betsy Prine.
The president traveled to East Tennessee—his first trip to the Knoxville area as president—to announce education and manufacturing proposals that will be presented in his State of the Union speech to Congress on January 20.
Announced at Pellissippi State Community College, the education proposal would provide two years of community college free to anyone who’s willing to work for it. [Read more…]
