Sherri Gardner Howell
A journalist and small business owner who was once the publisher of Blount Today will be the featured speaker at a Jan. 9 meeting of Altrusa International of Oak Ridge.
The speaker, Sherri Gardner Howell, has also been assistant publisher for Knoxville Magazine and a lifestyle writer for the Knoxville News Sentinel and Blount County News.
Her talk is titled “Divine Intervention: Why I am not Living in New York City” (Becoming a Mom in Spite of My Grand Plans).
Carolyn and Herb Krause look forward to a horse-and-carriage tour of historic Charleston, S.C., as part of an ORICL trip last September. (Submitted photos)
From stories of World War II to the displacement and resettlement of Native American tribes to the adaptation of life to climate change, the winter-spring 2013 semester of the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning starting Feb. 4 offers a surprising variety of courses.
The early registration deadline is Jan. 9, 2013, for the winter-spring semester, which ends April 26. Members should register by this date to have the best chance of getting preferred classes and trips.
ORICL has more than 500 members who take courses in a classroom and auditorium at Roane State Community College’s Oak Ridge campus on Briarcliff Road. A few courses, such as medical lectures and art classes, are taught in other locations.
The pairing of an environmentally friendly solvent invented and patented by the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge with the business acumen of its licensee Scott Manley has gained recognition in two recent competitions.
Manley owns RockinBoat LLC, a South Carolina start-up that in 2011 obtained sole commercial rights to manufacture and market the solvent RonJohn. Teknikem, the chemical division of RockinBoat LLC, offers the solvent as its sole technology. Initially developed at Y-12 by Ron Simandl and John Brown for use in dismantling weapons parts, the 2011 R&D 100 Award–winning technology can completely strip adhesives and finishes from a variety of surfaces with advantages not afforded by other commercially available solvents.
Roane State Community College campuses will offer extended business hours after the holiday break to help students get ready for the start of spring classes.
Roane State has been closed since Dec. 15 and will be closed through Tuesday, Jan. 1, for the holidays. All campuses will reopen on Wednesday, Jan. 2.
Readers have inquired about the work at this 13-acre site at Oak Ridge Turnpike and California Avenue, and a property owner said the land is being used to store materials for city sewer work required under a federal mandate.
Several readers have noticed what appears to be construction work at a former Chevrolet dealership on Oak Ridge Turnpike and asked what is happening there.
On Friday, Rick Chinn, partner in R&R Enterprises, which owns the 13-acre lot, said it is being used to store materials for city sewer work required under a federal mandate.
The land, which is east of Oak Ridge Veterinary Hospital and across from California Avenue, will also be used for operations during the sewer system project.
A local organization and church have organized a Jan. 11 forum on homelessness, and the public is invited to attend.
The forum will start at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 11 at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church. It’s been organized by the Trinity Out-Reach Center of Hope (TORCH) and the church.
A press release said the forum will bring together experts from social service agencies, faith-based groups, and the wider community for a frank discussion about homelessness that will include the definition, faces of homelessness, an exploration of potential solutions, and ways that people can be involved in the Jan. 24 “Point In Time Count” (PITC).
The three anti-nuclear weapons activists pictured above allegedly cut through fences and vandalized a high-security building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in July and now face federal charges of property destruction, property depredation, and injuring national defense premises. From left to right the three are Michael R. Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed. (Submitted photo)
Four of the Top 5 stories on Oak Ridge Today in 2012 were related to the July 28 security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Of those four, the most viewed—and also our most viewed story of the year—was the one we wrote the day of the intrusion: Y-12 protesters enter high-security area, spray paint, splash blood. That’s when three anti-nuclear weapons activists allegedly hiked over Pine Ridge, cut through fences, and splashed human blood and spray-painted slogans on the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, where bomb-grade uranium is stored.
Other stories related to the security breach that ended up in the Top 5 were:
Project Linus of East Tennessee recently announced it had received a $5,000 Walmart Foundation grant.
Project Linus of East Tennessee provides handmade blankets to more than 2,500 children each year who are in traumatic situations such as in the hospital or shelter, or who have been in an accident or fire, lost a parent who was serving the country, or affected by a mass school or public shooting, among other things.
Jessica Smith
Y-12 Federal Credit Union recently announced that Jessica Smith has been named branch manager of the North Knoxville Branch.
Smith has almost nine years of experience in the banking industry, a press release said. She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Tennessee and is currently attending Lincoln Memorial University for her master’s in business administration.
Tennessee senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander have introduced a plan to reduce the growth in federal entitlement spending by almost $1 trillion in exchange for increasing the nation’s debt limit by $1 trillion, possibly this spring.
The Dollar for Dollar Act of 2012 would reduce the growth in spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, according to a statement posted on Corker’s website. Most of the spending reductions—$689 billion—would come from Medicare reform.
Corker and Alexander seemed confident that Congress and the White House would reach a deal in the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations, a high-stakes debate that has dragged on for weeks over how to avoid automatic spending cuts and tax increases starting Jan. 1.
“When the dust settles, federal income taxes will not increase for almost all Americans next year,” Corker and Alexander said.
The two Republicans said their dollar-for-dollar plan “focused on helping Americans avoid falling off the fiscal cliff no one wants to talk about, the looming bankruptcy of Medicare.”
A winter reading club for adults starts at the Clinton Public Library in January.
The first program features a discussion of the John Grisham book “Skipping Christmas.” The library has copies of the book available for readers to borrow.
The first program starts at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 14.
State and local officials from Oak Ridge and Anderson and Roane counties recently attended the U.S. Department of Energy’s Annual Intergovernmental Conference in New Orleans. Participants met with federal, state, and local leaders from DOE sites across the nation, including top managers overseeing DOE’s Environmental Management, or EM, program.
Two senior DOE officials were keynote speakers at the conference. David Huizenga, senior advisor for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, provided an update on the EM program, which is responsible for environmental restoration, waste management, and long-term stewardship at DOE sites across the complex.
Neile Miller, recently named acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and acting undersecretary for nuclear security, addressed the relationship between NNSA and EM, and how the programs work together at sites with multiple missions like Oak Ridge.
