Registration is available for a small business webinar series and training events. The webinar series starts July 7, and it focuses on what the health care law means for your small business.
See the announcement from the Tennessee Small Business Development Center below. [Read more…]
The University of Tennessee Arboretum Society will present a Butterfly Festival on Saturday, July 30, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the UT Arboretum Auditorium and surrounding grounds in Oak Ridge.
It is co-sponsored by the UT Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center. The gate will be open at 8:30 a.m. Coffee and donuts will be sold from 9 to 10.
The UT Arboretum is at 901 South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge.
The event, designed for children and adults of all ages, will take place rain or shine, a press release said. [Read more…]
The June meeting of the Oak Ridge/Anderson County NAACP will be on Tuesday in Clinton.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 28, at the Green McAdoo Gymnasium next to the Green McAdoo Cultural Center.
Agenda items will include rescheduling the bimonthly state NAACP Meeting in July, the procedure for the fall NAACP election, a Political Action Committee report and upcoming activities, update on Education Committee information with the Oak Ridge High School principal, and a focus on the local and national elections. The NAACP will be collaborating with the local League of Women Voters for a July candidate forum. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge City Center, which could be redeveloped as a multi-use town center known as Main Street, is pictured above. Also known as the former Oak Ridge Mall, the L-shaped building is at center. The white building at center left is Walmart, and it is not part of the proposed redevelopment. Neither is the white building at center top, the Tinseltown Theater. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
The closing on the sale of the former Oak Ridge Mall is proceeding, and it is still on track to close by the end of June, a city consultant said Friday.
“Everything we’re hearing is that they are still on track to close by the end of the month,” said Ray Evans, retail consultant for the City of Oak Ridge.
Evans said officials have been in contact with the RealtyLink, the mall redeveloper, this week, and RealtyLink and the city staff have been discussing construction sequencing.
“We’ve had multiple meetings on that this week,” Evans said. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce building is pictured above.
The Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce’s Advocacy Committee will host a series of candidate forums during the election season this year, and the first forum, for three Anderson County Commission candidates, will be in July.
That first forum will be for candidates running in the special election for Anderson County Commission District 8. The forum will be held from 7:30-9 a.m. Thursday, July 14, in the Joyce Conference Room at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, which is at 1400 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
All three candidates for the office—Myra Mansfield, Angeleque McNutt, and Phil Yager—have indicated that they will be present for the forum, a press release said. All candidate forums are free and open to the public. [Read more…]
Professor Sean Johnston, a professor of science, technology, and social studies from the Dumfries Campus of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, searched through the papers of Alvin Weinberg, former director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as part of a two-year project funded by the British Academy titled “Trusting the Technological Fix.” (Submitted photo)
The Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge is well known as a center of play and learning for the young and young at heart. The museum’s lesser-known collections of historic papers recently brought a senior academic historian from Scotland to Oak Ridge for several days of research.
Professor Sean Johnston, a professor of science, technology, and social studies from the Dumfries Campus of the University of Glasgow, searched through the papers of Alvin Weinberg, former director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as part of a two-year project funded by the British Academy titled “Trusting the Technological Fix.”
His visit highlights the value of the collections the museum began gathering in the 1970s to tell the cultural and social history of the area for its Regional Appalachian Center.
“Not only was Weinberg the prominent head of the national laboratory (1955-73), and very much a member of the establishment, but he was somebody who was curious and worried about the wider social implications of nuclear technology,” Johnston said. [Read more…]
Lilly McDonald of Woodland Elementary School placed first in Life Science for her project, “Birds: Feed, Eat, Repeat” at the Da Vinci Arts and Science Fair at New Hope Center in May. (Submitted photo)
On May 21-22, six students represented Woodland Elementary School with science fair projects at the Da Vinci Arts and Science Fair at New Hope Center in Oak Ridge.
Five third-grade students participated: Abi Beach, Isabella Liu, Lilly McDonald, William Shen, and Edie Weston.
One fourth-grader, Isaac Robinson, also competed.
Two students placed in the science competition. Edie Weston placed second in Life Science for her project titled, “How Long Until Sunscreen Blocks UV Light?” Lilly McDonald placed first in Life Science for her project, “Birds: Feed, Eat, Repeat.” [Read more…]
An Oak Ridge nonprofit organization has received a $35,000 federal grant to help fight homelessness, officials said Thursday.
The Emergency Solutions Grant was awarded to the Trinity Outreach Center of Hope, or TORCH, the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, or THDA, said in a press release. TORCH will use the grant to help fight homelessness among high-risk populations in Anderson County and surrounding areas.
The funds will be used to help with administrative services, street outreach, prevention, and rapid rehousing services that will help homeless people and families in the area covered by TORCH, the press release said. [Read more…]
Officials in Rocky Top and Anderson County will have a ribbon-cutting on Friday, July 1, to celebrate recent legislation that allows all-terrain vehicles to ride on Highway 25W starting this summer.
The celebration will include officials from the City of Rocky Top, Rocky Top Chamber of Commerce, and Anderson County Tourism Council. The ribbon-cutting is scheduled at 10 a.m. Friday, July 1, at the “Welcome to Rocky Top City” sign located between the southbound exit ramp of Exit 129 off of Interstate 75 and the Colonial Road in front of KFC and Cracker Barrel.
The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation to amend current law that would allow for all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, to ride on Highway 25W in Rocky Top from the intersection of Colonial Lane to the intersection at Jacksboro Avenue beginning July 1, a press release said.
“Current legislation allows for ATVs to be operated on State Route 116 from Beech Grove to Highway 25,” said Mike Lovely, Rocky Top mayor. “This amendment extends the riding area and allows riders from Windrock Park to access the commerce area of Rocky Top.” [Read more…]
The ballot is set for the August 4 county general election and state and federal primary elections. The competitive elections include the Republican and Democratic primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Third Congressional District, which includes Oak Ridge, and the race for one of two seats in Anderson County Commission’s Eighth District, which includes the Woodland, Hendrix Creek, and Emory Valley precincts in Oak Ridge.
There is also competition for two seats on the Anderson County School Board, one in the Third District and the other in the Fifth District.
U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann, an Ooltewah Republican, is the incumbent in the House’s Third Congressional District. He has two opponents in the Republican primary on August 4: Allan Levene and Geoffery Suhmer Smith. (Signs for Fleischmann and Smith have both recently been posted in Oak Ridge.)
There are also three Democratic candidates on the ballot for U.S. House, Third District. They are Michael Friedman, George Ryan Love, and Melody Shekari.
The Republican winner will face the Democratic winner in the November 8 federal general election. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Police Department, Oak Ridge Fire Department, and other authorities and emergency medical services respond to a crash between a motorcycle and a tractor-trailer on Edgemoor Road at Haw Ridge Park on Thursday, June 23, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was updated at 1:52 p.m.
A motorcyclist was injured in a crash between a tractor-trailer and a motorcycle on Edgemoor Road on Thursday morning, authorities said.
The crash between an 18-wheeler and a motorcycle was reported at about 8:28 a.m. Thursday at Haw Ridge Park.
The name and condition of the motorcyclist and the type of motorcycle weren’t available Thursday morning. The motorcyclist was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
Oak Ridge Police Department Chief Jim Akagi said the motorcyclist was driving east on Edgemoor Road, headed toward Clinton Highway, when the motorcyclist appears to have passed the truck on the right, apparently on the shoulder of the road, as the eastbound tractor-trailer turned right into the parking lot at Haw Ridge. The motorcycle appears to have hit the truck on its passenger side, Akagi said. [Read more…]
The Independence Day fireworks show in Oak Ridge has been scheduled for 10 p.m. Monday, July 4, at A.K. Bissell Park. (File photo by Charles Samuels)
Oak Ridge will celebrate July 4 with fireworks at Alvin K. Bissell Park. The fireworks display, which is sponsored by the City of Oak Ridge, will start at 10 p.m. Monday, July 4.
The fireworks will be accompanied by music played live at the park by Merle 96.7 FM. Radio host Jack Ryan will be transmitting live from the park beginning at 6 p.m. and will conclude the live broadcast with a patriotic medley as the fireworks are shot, a press release said. The countdown to the fireworks begins at 9:30 p.m. Listeners can tune their radios to 96.7 Merle FM and enjoy the show.
The Oak Ridge Community Band will perform its annual Fourth of July concert at the A.K. Bissell Park Pavilion beginning at 7:30 p.m.
The best view of the show will be from the east end of Bissell Park, the press release said.
Please note: [Read more…]
