The Roane State Community College Shooting Sports Team recently received a $4,800 grant from the NRA Foundation.
The team will use the grant to purchase needed equipment such as shotgun shells, cleaning materials, and earplugs.
“The grant from the NRA Foundation will provide the tools we need to properly maintain our equipment,” team coach Kenny Carey said. “We greatly appreciate the foundation’s support for our athletes.” [Read more…]
Elisabeth MacNamara
Elisabeth MacNamara, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States, will be the special guest of the Oak Ridge League for its 70th Birthday Party on April 29. The celebration will be held at Calhoun’s Event Center, which is at 100 Melton Lake Peninsula in Oak Ridge, starting at 5:30 p.m. April 29.
Wanda Sobieski, Knoxville attorney and suffragette history authority, will be the guest speaker, and 50-year Oak Ridge League members will be honored during the celebration.
MacNamara was elected the 18th president of the U.S. League in 2010 and was re-elected for a third term in 2014. She joined the League in 1983 and has served in leadership roles at all levels—local, state, and national. She is a longtime resident of DeKalb County, a suburb of Atlanta. Professionally, she is an attorney, recently retired as deputy chief assistant district attorney in charge of the office’s juvenile court division in DeKalb County.
MacNamara will present a 70th birthday proclamation from Governor Bill Haslam. [Read more…]
John Stewart
John G. Stewart, who served as executive assistant to Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, will be the guest speaker at the Monday, April 25, meeting of the Anderson County Democratic Women’s Club. The club meets at 6 p.m. at the Clinton Community Center, which is at 101 South Hicks Street in Clinton.
Stewart, who was also a legislative assistant to Vice President Humphrey when he served in the U.S. Senate, will speak on a topic titled “The Privatization Scam: Once Again the People Lose.”
“Stewart has raised concerns about Governor Bill Haslam’s efforts to turn publicly-owned assets in Tennessee, including state parks, prisons, state universities and colleges, and other facilities, over to private management,” a press release said.
Stewart served as vice president of Tennessee Valley Authority for economic and community development and assistant general manager of administration at the Tennessee Valley Authority. Before that, he was staff director of two subcommittees in the U.S. Senate and served as director of communications for the Democratic National Committee. [Read more…]
Pictured above during an Oak Ridge City Council work session on Tuesday, April 19, 2016, are Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson, left, and Kayla Wyatt, an advocate for allowing a small number of hens at Oak Ridge homes. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was updated at 3:30 p.m.
The Oak Ridge City Council could consider a backyard chicken ordinance in May. If adopted, the ordinance could allow residents to have a small number of chickens, maybe up to a half-dozen hens, in places where they’re not allowed now.
Council is expected to use a Knoxville ordinance as a model. Knoxville allows domesticated chickens under an ordinance approved in 2010. An annual $25 permit is required to keep the birds, up to six chickens (hens only) are allowed, and they must be kept in a fenced enclosure at all times. They are for personal use only, and the slaughtering of chickens is prohibited.
Knoxville also requires a $50 fee for a building permit for the fenced enclosure and for a required henhouse, which must be covered and predator-resistant.
The Oak Ridge City Council could conceivably have several options in May: adopt the Knoxville ordinance without any changes, adopt a modified version of it, reject it, or defer it or send it to the Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission for further review. Planning Commission can’t accept it or reject it but can recommend that Council do so.
Oak Ridge officials have considered allowing backyard chickens before. In April 2010, the Oak Ridge City Council voted 4-3 against a resolution that would have kept alive a previous proposal. Two current Council members, Charlie Hensley and Ellen Smith, voted in favor of referring the proposal to the Planning Commission, which could have then consulted with interested residents and other city boards. The rejected resolution also would have directed former Interim City Manager Gary Cinder to draft an ordinance to amend the city code. [Read more…]
A representative of Redflex Traffic Systems gives a brief presentation on a new laser-technology traffic detection system that includes video and can measure the speed of vehicles and the distance between vehicles. Charlie Buckels, southeast U.S. sales manager for Redflex, gave the presentation during an Oak Ridge City Council work session on Tuesday evening, April 19, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Redflex Traffic Systems, the company that once had unmanned, pole-mounted red-light and speed enforcement cameras in Oak Ridge, has a new handheld system that it says could be used to help make roads safer as the city tries to slow down speeding drivers. But the use of the devices hasn’t been approved yet, and one Oak Ridge City Council member expressed her strong opposition on Tuesday.
The new handheld LIDAR devices include a camera, and they can capture traffic violations on video. They use a laser technology to measure vehicle speeds and distances between vehicles, said Charlie Buckels, southeast U.S. sales manager for Redflex. LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging.
Buckels said the handheld devices could be used for both civil and criminal violations. In some cases, such as for speeding, police officers could use the devices and the evidence they collect to issue civil citations that could be mailed to the registered owners of violating vehicles. In those cases, officers wouldn’t have to stop the violators, Buckels said.
But in other cases—when a car is driving excessively fast or swerving, for example—police officers could pull vehicles over, Buckels said.
City officials said they have been discussing drivers traveling too fast on roadways in the city, including those coming into town on South Illinois Avenue in the morning and trying to get to work on time. Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson said three City Council members have asked him to take action to combat speeding, and he’s had concerns himself about traffic on Illinois Avenue. Other roads cited by city officials Tuesday included Oak Ridge Turnpike, Robertsville Road, Melton Lake Drive, and Tennessee Avenue. [Read more…]
Note: This story was last updated at 1:10 p.m.
A 42-year-old man, the son of a former state representative, died in a head-on crash on Dutch Valley Road in Anderson County on Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
Michael J. Hackworth, 42, was traveling south on Dutch Valley Road in a 2002 Honda Accord when a 2004 Ford Escape driven north by George E. Ross, 70, crossed the center line, hitting Hackworth’s vehicle head-on, the Tennessee Highway Patrol said.
Hackworth was killed, and Ross was injured, the THP said. Hackworth is the son of former Tennessee Representative Jim Hackworth, a Democrat who is a former Anderson County commissioner and former candidate for Anderson County mayor.
“We’re all pretty devastated by the news,” said Catherine Denenberg, Anderson County Democratic Party chair. “It’s a tragedy…Our deepest sympathies go out to Jim and Brenda (Hackworth) and their family at this sudden loss. Please keep them in your prayers.”
Tanasi Winds features Dave Greenwood on clarinet, Dana Fox on oboe, RaNaye Dreier on flute, Bill Schwenterly on French horn, and Ardyce Lee on bassoon. (Submitted photo)
Tanasi Winds will be featured at an Oak Ridge Civic Music Association coffee concert on Sunday.
The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 24, at the First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge, which is at 1051 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
The concert is free, and refreshments will be served following the performance, a press release said. [Read more…]
Submitted
Comedy at the Grove is back with the amazingly funny Blayr Nias. She has worked with the best well-known comedians, making her mark in the comedy world. Also featured will be Asheville’s own Tom Scheve and Art Sturtevant, with Knoxville’s comedic son, Sam King, rounding out the funny as the host. Birdwell Catering will be available for your beverage needs. You must be 18 to enter and 21 to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages.
Blayr Nias is not your average female comic. She lives by the credo “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll have to be a horrible warning.” When she hits the stage, it’s with manic energy, high-octane humor, and her trademark mega-watt smile giving her the nickname “GummyBlayr.” Winning audiences over across the country with a dynamic stage presence, she shares tales of her misadventures as “the bad girl next door.”
This Massachusetts native graduated from the George Washington University with a degree in theater and creative writing. In 2012, she was featured in the Pink Collar Comedy Tour at the Piccolo Spoletto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina and performed in the Laugh Your Asheville Off Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, headlined by Jim Gaffigan. She was a featured artist in the Charlotte Video Project, a collection of short films about the culture of the city. In September 2013, Blayr was named a finalist in Comedy Central’s Up Next Comedy Competition. [Read more…]
The Roane State Community College campus in Oak Ridge is pictured above. (Photo by Roane State)
A new model that Roane State and all Tennessee community colleges are using to better progress students who need remedial support is receiving national attention.
Under the old model, students whose placement scores indicated they were not ready for college-level work had to pass a series of remedial courses before enrolling in college-level courses the next semester.
The remedial courses did not count toward a student’s degree. A student required to take multiple remedial courses could, for example, finish an entire semester of college as a full-time student without earning a single college credit toward their degree.
The new model, called co-requisite remediation, places under-prepared students directly into the college-level course, but requires learning support systems to help the students master course content and earn college credit in the same semester. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge Schools will have pre-registration for kindergarten during the week of May 2-6. The pre-registration is scheduled from 8:30 a.m.- 3:30 p.m. at Glenwood, Linden, Willow Brook, and Woodland elementary schools.
This will be the beginning of a two-part registration process that will be completed just prior to school entrance this summer. If you have a child who will be 5 years old on or before August 15, 2016, you should pick up a registration packet the week of pre-registration from the school in the district of your residence. This packet will include information about the required physical examination and changes to the immunization requirements that are mandated by the State of Tennessee for entrance to school. [Read more…]
Dieter Wolke
KNOXVILLE—International bullying expert Dieter Wolke, a professor of developmental psychology and individual differences at the University of Warwick, in Coventry, England, will present “The Long Shadow Thrown by Bullying” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Free and open to the public, the lecture is in Room 622 of the Min H. Kao Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building, 1520 Middle Drive. Parking is available in the 11th Street parking garage.
The event is hosted by the Department of Child and Family Studies in UT’s College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences.
Wolke will discuss bullying in schools and other settings, what it means for victims, and why it predicts long-term mental health problems. [Read more…]
A new art exhibit space will open to the public on Sunday, April 24, at 5:30 p.m. at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church. The opening exhibit is a retrospective of Oak Ridge artist Kristina Henderson Holland, who is also a member of ORUUC.
The exhibition and opening reception are organized by ORUUC’s Art Display Team.
Kristina Henderson Holland studied art at New York’s Adelphi University and Fashion Institute of Technology, including studying abroad in London. The ORUUC retrospective exhibit features 20 of her works, including 10 Tennessee landscape paintings. [Read more…]
