Image by Oak Ridge Police Department
The Oak Ridge Police Department is asking for the public’s help in finding a missing teenager.
Shayla Cook, 16, of Oak Ridge, was last seen at her home on the evening of October 31, 2017, the Oak Ridge Police Department said.
She was reported missing the following day by a family member who believes Shayla left on her own and may be with a non-custodial parent, the ORPD said. [Read more…]
Road closures are scheduled to start Monday on Hillside Road for sewer line work.
Parts of Hillside Road will be closed intermittently throughout the day on Monday, January 8, to allow crews to replace a sewer line located near Henley Road, the City of Oak Ridge said in a press release. Local traffic will be allowed to drive to homes on Henley Road.
A full closure of Hillside Road will begin on Tuesday, January 9, to renew service connections to several homes in the area, the press release said. These connections are located under the driving surface of the roadway. Local traffic to the affected residences will be accommodated, the press release said. [Read more…]
Juliann Hopper
By Bob Fowler, Roane State staff writer
As the only student in her high school class to attend Roane State’s Middle College in the fall of 2015, Juliann Hopper said her Oliver Springs High School classmates initially kidded her about it.
“They kind of gave me a hard time at first, but they got over it, and they now wish they had done Middle College too,” Hopper said.
Hopper, 19, is now a junior at Tennessee Tech, majoring in microbiology and well on her way toward a possible career as a research scientist.
She said she’d like to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which awarded her a scholarship to help pay for three of her four Middle College semesters. [Read more…]
Two people escaped and did not need medical treatment during a Monday night fire in Marlow, authorities said.
The fire was reported at 8:10 p.m. Monday in an occupied mobile home at 113 Melissa Lane in Ben’s Home Center in Marlow, said Stephanie Fox, chief of the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department.
It was a fully involved structure fire, Fox said. Firefighters used defensive firefighting measures, staying outside the structure and trying to prevent the fire from spreading.
The fire spread to a vehicle at the residence, which was near other mobile homes, and firefighters kept the blaze from spreading to another nearby mobile home, Fox said. [Read more…]
Ten members of Y‑12’s Protective Force graduated from the Central Training Facility’s Tactical Response Force 200, or TRF‑200. This is the first course held at Y-12 in recent years. The training is intense and specific, Y-12 said on Dec. 6, 2017. (Photo by Y-12 National Security Complex)
Ten members of the Y-12 National Security Complex Protective Force graduated from the Central Training Facility’s Tactical Response Force 200, or TRF‑200.
This was the first course held at Y-12 in recent years, Y-12 said in December.
Y-12 said the training is intense and specific. Graduates prove they have the skills to execute operations that include recapture/recover and pursuit in order to support any interruption within the U.S. Department of Energy environment.
“Graduating from this training takes dedication,” said Eric Belcher, director of Y‑12 Protective Force. “The class members worked their way through a series of tests and evaluations to participate in the course. Training involved intense physical and mental evaluations along with a requirement to demonstrate the potential to complete a four‑week intense program. Once in the course, they endured a grueling full‑day schedule of training.” [Read more…]
Image courtesy City of Oak Ridge
The City of Oak Ridge has two drop-off locations available for residents to recycle their Christmas trees after the holidays, and employees will help with drop-offs on two Saturdays in January.
Signs are already posted in both locations. The drop-offs are:
Trees will be accepted any time through January 28, 2018. On Saturday, January 13, and Saturday, January 20, Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Department employees will be on site to help with unloading trees at the Big Turtle Park drop-off location from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., a press release said. [Read more…]
Lindsay Elaine Pressley
A Claxton woman has been indicted in an alleged robbery at gunpoint in Claxton in 2016 that authorities said started with an advertisement for escort services posted on backpage.com.
Lindsay Elaine Pressley, 27, was indicted by the Anderson County Grand Jury on November 7. She was arrested Thursday and remained jailed in the Anderson County Detention Facility on Saturday night, with her bond set at $100,000.
The grand jury indicted Pressley on four charges: aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, and conspiracy to commit especially aggravated kidnapping.
In July, the grand jury indicted a Knoxville man, Richard Norman Pressley, 31, in the case. He was also charged with aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping using a weapon, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, and conspiracy to commit especially aggravated kidnapping. The Pressleys had been identified as husband and wife in a press release from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department after the alleged robbery and kidnapping in a mobile home on Queen Street in Ben’s Mobile Home Park off Edgemoor Road in Claxton on May 21, 2016. [Read more…]
Chris Whaley
Roane State Community College officials will learn in May if the college is among 10 finalists for the $1 million Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, among the nation’s most prestigious awards for community colleges, a press release said.
Roane State is among only 150 community colleges nationwide eligible to compete to become a finalist, the press release said. The college was selected from a pool of approximately 1,000 two-year colleges using publicly available data on student outcomes.
After a rigorous application process, the top 10 finalists for the 2019 Aspen Prize will be named in May 2018. Aspen Institute officials will then conduct site visits to each of the finalists and collect additional data, the release said. A distinguished prize jury will select a grand prize winner, finalists with distinction, and rising stars in spring 2019. [Read more…]
CodeRED, the emergency notification system used by the Oak Ridge Fire Department, launched a new short code for SMS text messages and weather warning messages this month. Notifications will now come from 76993, a press release said.
A short code is the five- or six-digit number sequence that appears on a mobile device when a message is delivered. This update means that any citizen who saved the previous short code in their phone as a contact will no longer see the name they designated (i.e. “CodeRED Alert”), but users will continue to receive messages just as they have in the past.
No action is required for users of the CodeRED system in light of this recent update. However, they are encouraged to program the new short code into their mobile phone or other device to ensure awareness of future alerts, the press release said. Again, the new short code is 76993. [Read more…]
The National Park Service, U.S. Department of Energy, and Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge will have an open house celebration at the Children’s Museum from 3-6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2017, to celebrate the Manhattan Project National Historical Park’s newest location for providing information about the park. (Photo by Manhattan Project National Historical Park)
Note: This story was updated at 4:30 p.m.
The National Park Service, U.S. Department of Energy, and Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge will have an open house celebration at the Children’s Museum from 3-6 p.m. Wednesday, January 24, to celebrate the Manhattan Project National Historical Park’s newest location for providing information about the park. Admission to the museum will be free during this event, a press release said.
This celebration will also feature a Parks in Focus photography exhibit that will be a tribute to Ed Westcott, the press release said. The exhibit will feature photographs taken by third- and fourth-grade girls from Girls Inc. of Oak Ridge using the Parks in Focus program curriculum, with inspiration from the black-and-white photography of Westcott. The Udall Foundation, based in Tucson, Arizona, created the Parks in Focus program to connect youth from under-served communities to nature through photography, environmental education, outdoor recreation, and creative expressions. This year-long program has been connecting youth of Oak Ridge to the rich history of the Manhattan Project through the lens of a camera, the press release said. [Read more…]
H-frame or H tower transmission towers are pictured at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex off Scarboro Road on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was updated at 1 p.m.
The City of Oak Ridge this week provided information on what the power poles on Pine Ridge could look like.
The logging work to install the power line poles, or transmission towers, on top of Pine Ridge has been temporarily delayed for 45 days after Oak Ridge City Council members raised concerns in November and December.
One of the concerns for City Council members has been the potential visual impact the power poles could have on top of Pine Ridge. That prominent ridge in south Oak Ridge separates Y-12 from the center of the city.
So far, the National Nuclear Security Administration and its Uranium Processing Facility Project Office haven’t provided a visual representation of what the transmission towers could look like on top of the ridge.
On Tuesday, Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson and Electric Director Jack Suggs provided some visual comparisons to City Council members during a non-voting work session. Watson said a light pole at the city baseball field is about 80 feet. That’s close to the same size as the roughly 79-foot-high power poles expected on Pine Ridge. [Read more…]
Qualification of the new high-density fuel will allow for the conversion of U.S. high performance research reactors, such as the Advanced Test Reactor located at Idaho National Laboratory, shown here. (Photo by National Nuclear Security Administration)
The National Nuclear Security Administration is leading an effort to develop and qualify a new fuel that will allow high-performance research reactors in the United States that currently use highly enriched uranium to be converted to reactors that use low-enriched uranium fuel.
The research reactors that could be converted include the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The goal is to develop a fuel that cannot be used in a nuclear weapon. The research reactors perform unique science and are a critical part of the U.S. nuclear complex, but all together, they use 200 kilograms of highly enriched uranium each year. That’s enough material for at least eight weapons, according to the NNSA.
On Wednesday, the NNSA said it has presented the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission with a preliminary report on uranium-molybdenum (U-Mo) monolithic fuel. The report contains data about the performance of the new fuel in a reactor and how it holds up under a variety of conditions. [Read more…]
