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Southern Poverty Law Center forums: Fighting hate, teaching tolerance, seeking justice
Lecia Brooks
There will be two community forums in Oak Ridge this week that will be led by the outreach director of an organization that is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society, a press release said.
The forums will feature speaker Lecia Brooks, outreach director for the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are scheduled at 2 p.m. Monday, May 7, at the Grove Theater at 123 Randolph Road and 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 8, in the sanctuary of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
The forums are free and open to the public. They are hosted by Women’s Interfaith Dialogue of Oak Ridge.
Brooks leads the Southern Poverty Law Center’s outreach efforts on key initiatives and social justice issues, the press release said. She frequently gives presentations around the country to promote tolerance and diversity, the release said. She also serves as director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama, an interpretive center designed to provide its visitors with a deeper understanding of the civil rights movement. [Read more…]
Five reasons to see Einstein Simplified on Sunday
The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society offered five reasons to see the Einstein Simplified improvisational comedy group at the UT Arboretum in Oak Ridge on Sunday, May 6, 2018. It’s a fundraiser for the UT Arboretum Society.(Submitted photo)
The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society offered five reasons to see the Einstein Simplified improvisational comedy group in Oak Ridge on Sunday. It’s a fundraiser for the UT Arboretum Society.
Here are the five reasons to see the show, the UT Arboretum Society said: [Read more…]
UT Arboretum Society has spring wildflower walk on Saturday
The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society will have a meet and greet followed by a spring wildflower walk at Haw Ridge Park on Saturday, May 5, 2018. Kris Light, an expert naturalist, educator, and photographer, will lead this fun, educational, and easy walk, a press release said. (Submitted photo)
The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society will have a meet and greet followed by a spring wildflower walk on Saturday, May 5.
It’s scheduled from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at Haw Ridge Park on Edgemoor Road in Oak Ridge. The parking lot is at the west end of the park. The walk is free and open to the public. Kris Light, an expert naturalist, educator, and photographer, will lead this fun, educational, and easy walk, a press release said. [Read more…]
Children’s Museum offers free teachers workshop on May 5 & 19
The Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge is offering teachers of kindergarten through fifth grade a Saturday morning workshop on healthy living and eating for kids. The workshop will bring teachers into the Museum’s Kids in Action! Healthy Living exhibit and to the garden in the Kids Go Green Environmental Center, a press release said.
The free workshop will be offered twice, from 8:30 a.m.-noon on Saturday, May 5, and again on May 19. Kids in Action and Kids Go Green staff and volunteers will lead the workshops and garden activities. These trainings are approved for in-service credit for teachers in the Oak Ridge school district, the press release said. [Read more…]
Roane State graduation set for May 4-5
Mike Krause
Roane State Community College will hold commencement ceremonies on May 4-5.
The ceremonies, to be held in the gym on the Roane County campus in Harriman, will be equal in presentation. [Read more…]
DA: Cromwell, other ‘sovereign citizens’ convicted in fraudulent liens case
Lee Harold Cromwell, the Oak Ridge man convicted of vehicular homicide in a fatal parking lot crash at Midtown Community Center after July 4 fireworks in Oak Ridge in 2015, was sentenced to 12 years in prison during a hearing in Anderson County Criminal Court on Monday, June 19, 2017. In a separate case, Cromwell was convicted this week in Nashville along with four other defendants in a fraudulent liens case, and he will be sentenced June 27. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was last updated at 8:30 a.m. May 4.
Five “sovereign citizens,” including Lee Cromwell of Oak Ridge, were convicted of more than 200 counts in Nashville this week in a case where the defendants had been accused of filing fraudulent liens against local and state officials in East Tennessee, including judges, prosecutors, and police officers in Anderson County, an official said Thursday.
Before the convictions, seven sovereign citizens from Anderson County had been charged in February 2017 with forgery and filing liens without a legal basis, Seventh Judicial District Attorney General Dave Clark said in a press release Thursday. Those charges came after an investigation that had been requested by Clark and was conducted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Many of the cases were tried in Nashville, and a jury returned a verdict this week of guilty on all counts, Clark said. Clark and his wife were both victims of the fraudulent liens, so Clark had requested another district attorney general to prosecute the case.
“As the liens were filed electronically at the Secretary of State’s Office in Nashville, it made sense to have the defendants indicted and prosecuted in Davidson County,” Clark said. [Read more…]
One adult, teenage driver, two children injured in crash near Norris
A 17-year-old driver was flown to a hospital by a medical helicopter after a two-vehicle crash near Norris on Wednesday morning, and an adult driver and two young children were taken to a hospital with serious and minor injuries, authorities said.
The head-on collision was reported at about 7:35 a.m. on State Route 61 at Bethel Road just east of Interstate 75, according to the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
The 17-year-old was driving west on SR 61 in a 1999 Mazda 4000 when the teenager crossed the center line around Bethel Road, the THP said. [Read more…]
No crime suspected in case of man found dead at park
A crime is not suspected in the case of a man found dead at Clark Center Park in south Oak Ridge on Tuesday, authorities said.
While patrolling the park on Tuesday afternoon, an Oak Ridge Police Department officer found a man sitting motionless in the driver’s seat of a sport utility vehicle, the ORPD said Wednesday. The SUV was parked along the road leading to the main portion of the park.
The officer stopped to investigate and saw the man slumped behind the wheel with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, the ORPD said. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. His body was taken to the Knox County Regional Forensics Center. [Read more…]
THP: Pedestrian walked in front of vehicle in fatal crash
The 75-year-old man killed in a vehicle-pedestrian crash in Marlow on Wednesday morning walked in front of a Ford truck for reasons that aren’t clear, authorities said.
The fatal crash was reported at 10 a.m. Wednesday on Oliver Springs Highway (State Route 61) at Old Batley Road.
The pedestrian has been identified as Curtis Byrge, 75. He has a Clinton mailing address.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol report said Byrge was walking west on Oliver Springs Highway when, for an unknown reason, he turned to walk south across the highway. [Read more…]
Updated: Frank, Barker, Lynch win Republican primaries
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank (Submitted photo)
Note: This story was last updated at 9 a.m. May 2.
CLINTON—Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank narrowly won the Republican Party primary on Tuesday, beating Anderson County Commissioner Steve Emert by 153 votes, according to unofficial results.
Frank, a former small business operator who was first elected in August 2012, had 4,771 votes, compared to 4,618 for Emert. That was a slim margin of 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent.
Frank has served one special two-year term as mayor and one full four-year term. There was no Democratic Party candidate for mayor in the Tuesday primary, meaning Frank won’t have a challenger on the ballot in the August 2 county general election and is essentially assured of serving again.
Emert is a small business owner who has served as Anderson County Commission chair. Like a previous candidate for mayor, former Tennessee Representative Jim Hackworth, Emert had emphasized what he characterized as dysfunction, including lawsuits, in the Anderson County Courthouse under Frank. Among other pledges, he had promised to restore civility to the county government.
But that and other campaign issues weren’t enough to give Emert the win, even if it might have helped to keep the election close. Emert initially had a narrow 63-vote lead after early and absentee voting results were counted. But the lead flipped when Election Day results started coming in from across Anderson County. [Read more…]
Man charged with attempted murder
Jeremy Jon Bessette
One Oak Ridge man was beaten in the head with a wrench on Thursday after a social media conversation, and another was charged with attempted murder after an alleged assault on South Walker Lane.
The victim, Andrew Steelman, had been talking to someone on social media that he thought was the girlfriend of Jeremy Jon Bessette, 40, according to affidavits filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge.
But it turned out that Steelman was not talking to Bessette’s girlfriend, but rather to Bessette, who was posing online as his girlfriend while Steelman “flirted with her,” the affidavits said.
The Oak Ridge Police Department first learned of the incident when they were notified of a physical disturbance on South Walker Lane at 1:53 p.m. Thursday. There, a witness said a man, later identified as Bessette, entered the home and began hitting another man in the head with what appeared to be a wrench, according to the affidavits, which were filed by ORPD Officer Perry Lewis.
The alleged assailant then got into a dark-colored Pontiac and fled, the affidavits said. [Read more…]
