Oak Ridge Today

Public meetings this week on school superintendent search

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A series of meeting this week, including one on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, will allow the public to tell school officials and a Iowa-based search firm what qualities they think the city’s next superintendent should have.

Tom Bailey, the current superintendent, is retiring at the end of this year, and efforts are under way to find his replacement.

Search firm Ray and Associates will lead meetings on the search from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday’s meeting will be held at Robertsville Middle School, while Wednesday’s will be held at Jefferson Middle School.

Officials cancel plan to cut guards at Y-12

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A plan to cut up to 34 guard positions at the Y-12 National Security Complex has been canceled, a federal spokesman said Tuesday.

WSI Oak Ridge, which provides security at Y-12, no longer has the authority to restructure its staff since it is now a subcontractor reporting to B&W Y-12, rather than the National Nuclear Security Administration, said Steven Wyatt, public affairs manager for the NNSA Production Office in Oak Ridge. That change in reporting authority followed an unprecedented July 28 security breach at the plant, the nation’s main production facility for many nuclear weapons components.

The WSI plan had called for cutting a total of up to 52 jobs at Y-12 and the East Tennessee Technology Park. Employees were to be offered voluntary separations, and today was supposed to be the last work day for those who were accepted.

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Oak Ridge mall owner focuses on one buyer, no sale date announced

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Oak Ridge City Center

The Oak Ridge City Center, pictured at center above, is for sale and the owners say they are working with potential buyers, although no sale date has been set.

Local officials have announced a few different timelines and deadlines for the redevelopment of the Oak Ridge Mall since April, but the company that owns the property last week declined to set a specific sale deadline.

“We are working diligently with buyers, and there will be an announcement forthcoming,” said Steve Arnsdorff, chief manager of Oak Ridge City Center LLC, which owns the mall.

Mall owners are focused on one buyer, Arnsdorff said during an interview last week.

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School officials, nonprofits seek solution on Linden bus rides

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The Oak Ridge school system stopped giving bus rides from Linden Elementary School to Girls Inc. and the Boys and Girls Club this year, and attendance at the two nonprofit organizations has fallen by more than 100 children, executives said Monday.

Now, the executives are working with school officials to find a way to get the students from Linden to the clubs each day.

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Glenwood, Clinton elementary schools among state’s best-performing

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Two schools in Anderson County were recognized as reward schools by Tennessee officials on Monday, meaning they are among the best-performing in the state.

The two schools are Glenwood Elementary School in Oak Ridge and Clinton Elementary School in Clinton. They are among a group of 169 reward schools that rank in the top 5 percent of schools in Tennessee for annual growth and academic achievement.

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Motorcyclist taken to UT Medical Center after Saturday collision

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South Illinois Avenue Motorcycle Accident

A Heiskell man was taken by ambulance to the University of Tennessee Medical Center after a Saturday morning collision with a minivan on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge. (Photo by Tom Scott)

A 68-year-old motorcyclist was taken by ambulance to the University of Tennessee Medical Center after a Saturday morning collision with a car at a busy intersection in south Oak Ridge.

An Oak Ridge Police Department accident report said Roy Clifton Hall Jr., 68, of Heiskell, was riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle north on South Illinois Avenue when he hit a a Toyota minivan driven by Betty Jean Sonnenfeldt, 55, of Knoxville. The report said Sonnenfeldt was trying to turn onto Lafayette Avenue, but she did not yield to Hall.

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Report: Man drives aggressively toward police, flees at speeds near 100 mph

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Jerry Dale Allmon

Jerry Dale Allmon

An Oak Ridge man allegedly drove aggressively toward police officers at a BP gas station early Monday morning before fleeing west on Oak Ridge Turnpike in a chase that reached speeds of close to 100 mph, Anderson County court records said.

Jerry Dale Allmon, 59, allegedly ran several red lights as he fled, and he drove in the center of the road and in the middle of two traffic lanes, arrest warrants said. The Kingston Police Department apprehended him at the former K-25 site in west Oak Ridge, the warrants said.

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Burned pot of food triggers fire alarm, apartment evacuation

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Frank Callaghan Towers Fire

Oak Ridge firefighters evacuate the six floors of Frank Callaghan Towers on Fairbanks Road on Sunday morning after a burning pot of food on a stove reportedly filled hallways with smoke.

An apparent burned pot of food on a stove on the fifth floor of an Oak Ridge apartment building filled hallways with smoke on Sunday and forced firefighters to try to evacuate tenants from all six floors, Oak Ridge Deputy Fire Chief David Harrington said.

“When they opened up the door, it filled the hallways with smoke,” Harrington said.

Firefighters tried to evacuate tenants at the Callaghan Towers apartments on Fairbanks Road because they didn’t initially know the source of the 9:45 a.m. alarm, but Harrington said he wasn’t sure how many people were evacuated.

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ORNL researchers probe invisible vacancies in fuel cell materials

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Knowing the position of missing oxygen atoms could be the key to cheaper solid oxide fuel cells with longer lifetimes. New microscopy research from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is enabling scientists to map these vacancies at an atomic scale.

Although fuel cells hold promise as an efficient energy conversion technology, they have yet to reach mainstream markets because of their high price tag and limited lifespans. Overcoming these barriers requires a fundamental understanding of fuel cells, which produce electricity through a chemical reaction between oxygen and a fuel.

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ORNL technology moves scientists closer to extracting uranium from seawater

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Fueling nuclear reactors with uranium harvested from the ocean could become more feasible because of a material developed by a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The combination of ORNL’s high-capacity reusable adsorbents and a Florida company’s high-surface-area polyethylene fibers creates a material that can rapidly, selectively, and economically extract valuable and precious dissolved metals from water. The material, HiCap, vastly outperforms today’s best adsorbents, which perform surface retention of solid or gas molecules, atoms, or ions.

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Small trash fire at Dean Stallings Ford extinguished Friday

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Dean Stallings Ford Fire

Firefighters respond to a small trash fire at the former Dean Stallings Ford on Friday. (Photo by Tom Scott)

A small trash fire at the former Dean Stallings Ford on Oak Ridge Turnpike was quickly extinguished Friday evening, fire photographer Tom Scott said.

The fire started at about 6:30 p.m. in a vacant building on the back half of the former dealership.

Fans were used to remove smoke from the large building, and the cause of the fire is under investigation.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

Smoke at Dean Stallings Ford, firefighters at scene

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