The Oak Ridge High School Class of 1982 will be holding its 35-year reunion September 1-3.
Activities include a Friday night social, a Saturday night dinner and dance, and a Sunday picnic. The cost for the weekend’s events is $65 per person.
For more information or to register for the reunion, contact Mark Boatner at (865) 483-0402 or by e-mail at boatnerm@comcast.net.
James Peery
James Peery, who has led critical national security programs at Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been selected as the chief scientist of the Global Security Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“James brings more than two decades of experience in creating successful national security initiatives for the U.S. Department of Energy,” said Brent Park, associate laboratory director of global security at ORNL. “In particular, his leadership in cybersecurity, data analytics, and high-performance computing will enable him to lead the laboratory’s cybersecurity initiative for the electric grid and beyond.”
Next-generation cybersecurity for the electric grid is a multi-directorate, multi-program effort at ORNL that supports the DOE cybersecurity program for critical energy infrastructure, a press release said. The initiative aims to enable electric utilities and other components of the nation’s energy supply to defend against emerging and previously unseen cyberattacks.
Peery also will help ORNL researchers draw on the lab’s distinctive capabilities to develop scientific and technological solutions aligned with national security policies and strategies, the press release said. [Read more…]
Photo courtesy Oak Ridge Schools
Jefferson Middle School students Ian Bailey and Beatrice Shea were awarded second place in the Student Map—up to age 12 category at the Esri 2017 Users Conference Map Gallery.
The students selected their mapping project because their school is unique by having wooded and protected areas near it. They learned that these areas provide a habitat that is important to the local ecosystem. Jefferson Middle School has taken a strong interest in protecting these resources and has taken steps to add more habitats, creating a wetland, for example, and maintaining trails, eradicating invasive species, and providing bird boxes in the Cedar Barrens.
Their map, Cedar Barrens, is an online Story Map created using ArcGIS Online to display efforts to engage Jefferson Middle School students in their surroundings in a meaningful way. Students collected the locations shown on the map using GPS, added photos and text to explain each location. You can view their map at http://arcg.is/2g66cm1. [Read more…]
George Meghabghab leads Roane State’s cyber defense program. The college is now part of the National CyberWatch Center. (Photo by Roane State Community College)
By Bob Fowler, Roane State staff writer
In this era of widespread hacking, ransomware, and other cyberattacks, Roane State Community College is about to launch an educational counterattack.
Preparations are under way for the college to become a center for academic excellence in cyber defense.
George Meghabghab, professor of computer science and director of Roane State’s computer information technology program, recently unveiled the college’s long-range plan to expand its IT (information technology) curriculum.
“We’re going to begin a culture of cybersecurity,” he said. “Cybersecurity is a growing field, and our goal is to build a program that teaches the very latest technology and is closely aligned to industry needs.” [Read more…]
Roane State Community College will offer extended business hours to help students get ready for the start of the new semester. Fall classes begin August 28.
Extended hours for the Roane County and Oak Ridge campuses are:
The Roane County and Oak Ridge campuses will maintain usual business hours (8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.) on Fridays. [Read more…]
Photo courtesy City of Oak Ridge
The art exhibit at Oak Ridge Public Library for the month of August is a collection of drawings and paintings by young artists from Girls Inc. of Oak Ridge.
This organization first began in 1976 as a girls-only sports program, but quickly grew into an after school, summer camp, and sports program for girls between five and 18 years old. Girls Inc. serves more than 850 girls per year, a press release said.
Girls in the program are encouraged to be strong, smart, and bold, the press release said. [Read more…]
An ash tree is pictured above in Oak Ridge. (Photo courtesy City of Oak Ridge)
The Oak Ridge Tree Board is hosting a workshop focused on the impact of the emerald ash borer in the area. The event, scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, August 29, will provide important information regarding the emerald ash borer for property owners, landscapers, and others involved in the maintenance of green spaces, a press release said.
“Ash trees make up a significant percentage of our urban forest and have traditionally been a landscaping staple,” the press release said. “Many of these trees in Oak Ridge are already dead or beyond treatment, but a significant number can be saved. At the workshop later this month, experts from around the area will address issues such as identification of affected ash trees and responses to EAB (emerald ash borer) infestation, including appropriate treatment.”
Those who attend will learn about these pests and their origin and how they spread across the country, as well as the techniques used in diverse areas ranging from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to urban areas, such as Knoxville and surrounding municipalities. [Read more…]
Photo by City of Oak Ridge
The Oak Ridge Public Works Department will close part of Tusculum Drive from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. starting Monday, August 7, so crews can replace a culvert under the road. The culvert replacement project is expected to be active until Wednesday, August 9, a press release said.
Residents will have access to their homes and driveways during this time, but the roadway will be closed to through traffic, the press release said.
“All work is subject to change based on such unknowns as the weather,” the release said. “Residents are urged to use extreme care and caution while driving in the area. All others are advised to use alternate routes. [Read more…]
Ecologist Dan Nelson hauling in a gill net as part of the fish population survey of the Clinch River Study. (Photo by Oak Ridge National Laboratory via U.S. Department of Energy)
Researchers at federal sites such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory first developed many of the concepts and tools that ecologists still use today, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
“The study of ecology is likely to evoke images of recycling signs or the ‘blue marble’ Earth from space associated with the environmental movement of the 1960s,” the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science said in an article published online on June 28. “But in reality, ecology as a field largely developed to meet the need to monitor radioactive contamination in the Atomic Age.”
The federal government had a major knowledge gap after World War II, according to the article, which was written by Shannon Brescher Shea, senior writer/editor in DOE’s Office of Science. Specifically, the United States government needed to know more about the consequences of nuclear weapons use and production, from the effects of fallout to waste disposal.
The Atomic Energy Commission’s national laboratories were logical places to answer these questions, the article said. [Read more…]
Bring your library card to the Oak Ridge Public Library on August 14 and you can receive a free pair of eclipse viewing glasses.
There is a limit of one pair per account, and the glasses will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
For more information, call the library at (865) 425-3455.
The partial eclipse will generally start in Oak Ridge at 1:04 p.m. August 21, and totality will take place at 2:33 p.m. It has been estimated that the total solar eclipse in Oak Ridge will last 27 to 31 seconds. [Read more…]
Information from WYSH Radio
An Oliver Springs police officer escaped serious injury Thursday night when his parked patrol car was struck while he responded to a traffic crash.
The incident occurred at the Highway 61/62 interchange Thursday evening as Oliver Springs Police Department Sergeant Charles Graham responded to a minor crash. Preliminary indications are that a second driver struck the back of the officer’s patrol car, which in turn caused the cruiser to strike him. [Read more…]
Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, is pictured above during a rally at Alvin K. Bissell Park on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Peace activists will have events in Oak Ridge and Knoxville starting Saturday and ending Wednesday that will recall the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II, and the activists will call for a ban on nuclear weapons.
The events have been organized by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. OREPA has events each August remembering the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II. The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb used in wartime. Code-named “Little Boy,” the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of the war.
OREPA has scheduled a Saturday event called “And We Are Saying Peace.” It will start at 12:30 p.m. with a concert and theater presentation at Alvin K. Bissell Park in Oak Ridge. Those who attend will call on the United States to join the countries that passed a legal treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons at the United Nations on July 7, a press release said.
The Saturday event will also mark the conclusion of a peace pilgrimage from Asheville, North Carolina, to Oak Ridge, led by the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji, the press release said. The walk left Asheville last Sunday and is expected to arrive at Bissell Park on Saturday. The final leg will leave Solway at 9 a.m. Saturday. [Read more…]
