The Oak Ridge Farmers Market opened on Saturday, April 18. (Photo by Julio Culiat)
The Oak Ridge Farmers Market opened for the season on Saturday, April 18. Its the market’s 39th season.
The market will be open from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays in Historic Jackson Square. It will also be open on Wednesdays beginning May 6.
Here’s what’s new at the market this year: [Read more…]
Penny Behling, CEO of Dynamic Dragon Boat Racing, makes an announcement before the races begin at the Oak Ridge Dragon Boat Festival last May. Looking on is City Manager Mark Watson, then president of the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge, which initiated the festival. (Submitted photo)
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Penny Behling wants you to have fun on Saturday, May 30, at the Oak Ridge waterfront, and help raise funds to support the good works of the people of Oak Ridge.
She wants you to be safe as a member of a dragon boat team, and she is sure that you will meet new people, make new friends, build self-confidence, and contribute to your team and the community’s well-being.
Behling is the chief executive officer and owner (with her husband Chris) of Dynamic Dragon Boat Racing LLC of Knoxville. She will be the race director of the second annual Oak Ridge Dragon Boat Festival, which is again being launched by the three Rotary clubs of Oak Ridge.
Dynamic was the race director of last year’s inaugural festival, which attracted an estimated 5,000 people and a media team that broadcast the Oak Ridge races to a television network in Beijing, China, which has an audience of a billion people. [Read more…]
The Langston Hughes Library at the Children’s Defense Fund Haley Farm in Clinton will host an author session and book-signing event with Carolyn Maull McKinstry, author of “While the World Watched.” It will start at 3 p.m. in Haley Lodge on Sunday, April 19.
McKinstry is a survivor of the civil rights struggle and an eyewitness to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 16, 1963. The bombing resulted in the deaths of four young girls, all of whom McKinstry knew well. As a teenager, McKinstry marched under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and bravely faced Bull Connor’s German shepherds and stinging fire hoses during the battle for equal rights in her hometown of Birmingham.
Now, nearly 50 years after the bombing, McKinstry is still an active member of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, serves as president of the Sixteenth Street Foundation, and works full time spreading her message of racial reconciliation.
A highly sought-after speaker, McKinstry has appeared on Oprah, 20/20, CNN, and MSNBC, and portions of her story have been featured in Life magazine and USA Today. She has made numerous television and documentary appearances, including Spike Lee’s documentary “Four Little Girls,” Soledad O’Brien’s “Black in America,” Brian Williams’s “Shades of Progress, Shadows of Hate,” the Poverty Law Center’s documentary “The Children’s March,” and Family Network’s “We Shall Not Be Moved.” [Read more…]
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“Art Therapy and Mental Health” is an interactive and hands-on workshop that will be hosted by the Grace Lutheran Church Mental Health Ministry on Saturday, April 18, at 10:30 a.m. The church is located at 131 West Gettysburg Avenue in Oak Ridge.
The workshop is free and open to the public.
The program will be presented by community counselors Emma C. Burgin and Amanda DeDiego, both of whom are doctoral students in counselor education at the University of Tennessee. [Read more…]
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The University of Arboretum Society will celebrate its 50th anniversary by featuring “The Rising Sun™” Redbud at its Annual Spring Plant Sale on Saturday, April 18.
This plant was found and introduced into the trade by Ray and Cindy Jackson of Jackson Nursery in Belvidere, Tennessee. This brand-new Redbud displays heart-shaped foliage of deep apricot-orange in the spring, maturing to yellow and then speckled lime-green in summer, only to return to its rich golden tones for autumn. It has rosy-orchid sweet pea-like blooms in early spring which are attractive to bees and butterflies. It is a vigorous grower reaching eight to 12 feet tall and about eight feet wide, and is cold-hardy to Zone 5. This compact native is ideally suited as a specimen in small yards or gardens. [Read more…]
Country music artist Kix Brooks, who was part of the country duo Brooks and Dunn, performs during the 2014 Secret City Festival. (Photo by Rob Welton)
A new task force is scheduled to discuss potential changes to the Secret City Festival on Thursday, including shifting the annual festival to small events from mid-October to November 11 (Veterans Day), creating a nonprofit organization to run the festival (and possibly other special events), and voting on changing the date of the festival and whether it should be a one- or two-day event.
The new task force will also discuss unique opportunities for a festival theme and could develop a list of potential entertainment venues to be used throughout the city for the festival, consider other potential festival dates, and develop a list of potential partners.
The meeting of the Special Events Advisory Task Force starts at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 23, in the Oak Ridge Recreation Center’s Craft Room at 1402 Oak Ridge Turnpike. [Read more…]
Photo submitted by Mare Martell
Help put the unity back in commUNITY at this year’s neighborhood cleanup hosted by the Oak Ridge Police Department Community Resource Office, the Oak Ridge Neighborhood Watch Program, Keep Anderson County Beautiful, and Central Baptist Church.
All participants will rally in the big parking lot of Central Baptist Church at the Hillside Road side. Sign-in and equipment pickup starts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, May 2. The event will run from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. This happens rain or shine.
If you have a particular area on which you prefer to focus your attention, please call one of the contact numbers to arrange for the pickup of the trash-filled bags. (The sign-in and equipment pickup applies even for the people who have special requested a particular area before May 2 by contacting Officer Brandan Sharp or Sharon Crane). [Read more…]
A wide variety of plants, blacksmith demonstration, and food will be featured
The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society will have its 48th annual Spring Plant Sale on Saturday, April 18. The sale is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the UT Arboretum at 901 South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge.
The “Members Only” sale will be on Friday evening, April 17, from 5 to 7 p.m. Memberships may be purchased at that time for this “early bird” shopping opportunity. Checks and credit cards will be accepted.
This year, the Arboretum Society will gather the best of four local nurseries in one location. Beaver Creek and Riverdale Nurseries from Knoxville, Sunlight Gardens from Andersonville, and East Fork Nursery from Sevierville will be offering a large and varied selection of shrubs, trees, wildflowers, perennials, annuals, and edibles. [Read more…]
The shop keepers of the Historic Grove Center would like to announce “Shop The Historic Grove Center Day” on Saturday, April 18, from 10:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. The day will include live music, karaoke, and more, organizers said.
“This event is to bring awareness to people that Historic Grove Center is here, and we have some awesome shops,” organizers said. “Shop small and help the small businesses.”
Jerrold Eaton, Woodland block captain with the Oak Ridge Neighborhood Watch Program, joins volunteers from Neighborhood Watch and Central Baptist Church to clear brush away from the intersection of Pennsylvania and North Tulane Avenues and Providence Road recently. The ORNWP pancake breakfast supports activities of Neighborhood Watch. (Submitted photo)
Join your neighbors at a Community Pancake Breakfast from 8-10 a.m. Saturday, April 18, hosted by the Oak Ridge Police Department Community Resource Office and the Oak Ridge Neighborhood Watch Program.
The breakfast will be held at Applebee’s, 1213 Oak Ridge Turnpike, and tickets are $5. Tickets are available at the door.
The breakfast offers residents an opportunity to learn more about the city’s Neighborhood Watch crime prevention program. Neighborhood Watch block captains and district leaders will serve breakfast at the event. [Read more…]
The City of Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge Schools will have a Community Wellness Fair on Wednesday, April 22.
The Wellness Fair is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 22 at Oak Ridge Civic Center.
The Wellness Fair includes a wide range of activities that include blood pressure checks, doctor’s chats, exercise tips, shingle vaccines, breast and men’s health, and dental, hearing, and diabetic foot screenings. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Community Orchestra Performing at the 2014 Dogwoods Arts Festival. (Photo courtesy of John Fairstein)
Daniel Webb
As part of the Dogwood Arts Festival, the Oak Ridge Community Orchestra will be performing famous and memorable music in Knoxville’s Market Square from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 18.
The free concert will feature the lively “Figaro Aria” sung by Daniel Webb, the emphatic fourth movement from the “New World Symphony” by Dvořák, the raucous “Polovtsian Dances” by Borodin, and the hand-clapping “Radetzky March” by Johann Strauss (Sr.). This is a great way to enjoy a Saturday afternoon while browsing the shops at the Dogwoods Arts Festival.
The “Barber of Seville” is a familiar opera by Gioachino Antonio Rossini, premiering in 1816. The most famous aria from that opera is probably “Largo al Factotum,” in which the central figure, Figaro, vigorously touts his prowess as a barber and local facilitator of “everything.” The articulation and style in this aria are so impressive that Warner Brothers, Walter Lantz, and Hanna Barbera studios couldn’t resist featuring it in cartoon parodies. [Read more…]
