Information from WYSH Radio in Clinton
A van driver for the East Tennessee Human Resource Agency was arrested last week after he allegedly bought pain pills from a confidential informant in a bathroom at Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge.
Leonard Shannon Ellis, 33, of Rockwood and Keith Edward Sackett, 55, of Kingston are each in custody at the Anderson County Jail on charges of criminal conspiracy and possession of a controlled substance.
Information from WYSH Radio in Clinton
The desire to find a deal on a gift for his grandson early on Black Friday landed a Clinton man in jail.
According to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, 62-year-old Jerry Leon Poe allegedly fired a pistol at a woman driving in front of him on Oak Ridge Highway shortly before 5 a.m. Friday to, as he put it to deputies, “scare her into moving.”
A five-county regional planning organization will have a public meeting on greenways at the Oak Ridge Civic Center tonight.
It’s one of four regional meetings and part of an effort to expand and connect greenway systems in Anderson, Blount, Loudon, and Union counties, a press release said.
The Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club recently presented its Service Above Self award to John Auxier, second from left. Also pictured from left are Linda Brown, Tonya Vargas, Jim Michels, and Michael McCutchens. (Photo by D. Ray Smith)
The Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club recently selected John Auxier as the winner of the 2012 Service Above Self Award.
The award, presented at an October meeting, is unique because it is not given to Rotarians but instead to people or organizations that give outstanding volunteer service to the community, a press release said.
“This award is also distinctive in that it is not an annual award but is instead only given when the award committee believes there is a worthy recipient,” the release said.
The Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Department is offering an American Red Cross Lifeguarding class that starts Dec. 13.
The class will meet:
A Pizza Hut driver was allegedly robbed at gunpoint Saturday night while delivering pizzas on Jefferson Avenue, an Oak Ridge Police Department report said.
The suspected robber allegedly stole the 25-year-old victim’s cell phone, three pizzas, and $70 in cash at about 10:10 p.m. Saturday, the report said.
Pizza Hut had received a call from someone who identified himself as George W. and ordered three pizzas at 9:22 p.m. Saturday. But when the driver delivered the pizzas to the vacant duplex on the east side of Jefferson Avenue, there were no cars parked there, the home was dark, and no one answered the door or the phone.
The Oak Ridge Community Band will have its annual Christmas sing-along concert at 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 16, at the First Baptist Church.
The free concert will be in the church’s sanctuary, and there will be free refreshments at the end of the performance, a press release said.
The Anderson County Commission will have a public hearing on Monday, Dec. 10, to hear citizens’ concerns about the Andersonville Volunteer Fire Department’s proposal to start a subscription/membership service.
The public hearing will start at 7 p.m. in Room 312 of the Anderson County Courthouse at 100 N. Main St. in Clinton.
The Roane State Community College’s annual holiday concert is scheduled for the second weekend in December.
The holiday concert includes two performances, one at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7, and the other at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 9, in the O’Brien Theatre on the college’s Roane County campus in Harriman.
The U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office said last week it had received funding for reimbursable work totaling $442 million during the last fiscal year, which ended in September.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory performed about $232 million of the work, a press release said. The remaining $210 million of the work was conducted at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.
Under its Work for Others program, DOE said, outside entities can use national laboratories to solve problems when the work is related to DOE missions and the entities cannot do the work elsewhere.
The area of Redoak Mountain east of New River Highway in northern Anderson County, where a 150-acre fire was reported Sunday afternoon. Anderson County is on the south side of the black Anderson-Campbell county line. (Image courtesy of Nathan M. Waters/Tennessee Division of Forestry)
Tennessee firefighters reported a new fire on Redoak Mountain on the Anderson-Campbell county line early Sunday afternoon.
The fire was initially estimated at about 100 acres, and firefighters were responding from the Tennessee Division of Forestry and Claiborne County. There are several houses on the Anderson County side, said Nathan M. Waters, Tennessee Forestry Division assistant district forester.
The fire is off Highway 116, which is also known as New River Highway in northern Anderson County. It’s in steep, strip-mining country west of Briceville and in an area close to the Graves Gap fire that was reported as a 100-acre fire on Thanksgiving but grew to 375 acres on Friday.
Lower humidity and gusty winds at higher elevations mean fire conditions have worsened in East Tennessee, state firefighters said Sunday.
Two firefighters were slightly injured battling blazes in Campbell County on Saturday, said Nathan M. Waters, Tennessee Forestry Division assistant district forester.
State and local firefighters have responded to 16 new fires since Thanksgiving Day across upper East Tennessee, including in Anderson, Campbell, Knox, Morgan, Scott, Sevier, and Union counties. The fires have burned hundreds of acres, and many of them are suspected arsons.
Waters said forestry crews would recheck fires in Anderson, Scott, and Campbell counties, including one on Walden Ridge that broke out again on Saturday and one on a mountaintop west of Briceville on Highway 116, also known as New River Highway. The Walden Ridge breakout was contained, and “crews will be improving lines today,” Waters said.
