The Oak Ridge Wildcats will start the regular football season at home on Blankenship Field on Friday, August 23.
The Wildcats will open the season in a game against Hardin Valley. The game starts at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
It will be the first time the Wildcats have played a regular-season game on the new synthetic turf on Blankenship Field.
[Read more…]The renovated Blankenship Field—the city’s football field—and its walking track are now open for public use.
The main change is that the grass field has been replaced with synthetic turf, but there are other changes as well, including to scoreboards and end zone areas.
The Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Department and Oak Ridge Schools announced the opening of the renovated field on Tuesday.
The field and track are accessible through a gate adjacent to the lower concession stand, a press release said. Like other public park facilities, public use is permitted from sunup to sundown, except when the field is reserved for special events, the press release said.
[Read more…]
Mark Watson
Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson cited a top six project list during his “State of the City” presentation to the League of Women Voters on Tuesday.
The items on the list were installing the synthetic turf on Blankenship Field, to be completed in May, in time for graduation; improving a few intersections, including at Tulane Avenue; making progress on Rails to Trails; finishing the new Friendship Bell pavilion at Alvin K. Bissell Park; adding exhaust systems at Oak Ridge fire stations for the diesel-burning fire trucks; and replacing the Oak Ridge Water Plant.
The new water plant could cost $44 million and be built at the city’s water intake on Melton Hill Lake in south Oak Ridge. It’s probably the largest public works project for the city, Watson said. About half of the city’s water is used by the City of Oak Ridge and the other half is used by U.S. Department of Energy facilities, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex. [Read more…]
The high school football season is over, and renovation work started at Blankenship Field in November 2018. (Photo courtesy Oak Ridge Schools)
A limited amount of sod from Blankenship Field will be available to football fans during a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday afternoon.
Renovations have started at the field, which will be converted from grass to synthetic turf, possibly by the end of April.
The ceremonial groundbreaking will be hosted by the City of Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge Schools, and it is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Friday, December 7.
“Football fans will be given the opportunity to take home a piece of sod from the field beginning at 3:30 p.m. Friday,” a press release said. A limited amount of sod will be available at no cost on a first-come, first-served basis. [Read more…]
The high school football season is over, and renovation work started at Blankenship Field in November 2018. (Photo courtesy Oak Ridge Schools)
The high school football season is over, and renovation work has started at Blankenship Field.
The City of Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge Schools have both posted photos of the start of the work.
On Wednesday, the City of Oak Ridge said maintenance crews from Oak Ridge Schools were doing preliminary work, including removing irrigation, fencing, and sod.
“Heavy machinery will arrive with the contractors soon,” the city said in a post published on Twitter. “We can’t wait to see the finished product next year!” [Read more…]
Oak Ridge senior quarterback Herbert Booker (13) scrambles during a 20-14 loss to Farragut on Blankenship Field on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018. (Photo by Barry Houchin)
The Oak Ridge football team is 6-1 so far this season. Here are photos from some of their first seven games, courtesy of Barry Houchin.
Oak Ridge is off this week. They play next at Clinton on Friday, October 12. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Wildcats walk down the stairs at Jack Armstrong Stadium before a 41-12 win over Dobyns-Bennett on Blankenship Field on Friday, Aug. 24, 2018. (Photo by Barry Houchin)
The Oak Ridge football team is 6-1 so far this season.
The Wildcats have had three wins and no losses in Region 3-5A. They have defeated Campbell County at home and West and Karns on the road.
Their other three wins were in non-regional games, with victories at Hardin Valley, at home against Dobyns-Bennett, and at Sevier County.
Their one loss, a non-regional game, was to Farragut on Blankenship Field.
All three games remaining in the regular season are regional games: Clinton (1-5, 0-2); Powell (6-1, 3-1); and Fulton (5-1, 2-0).
Oak Ridge is off this week. They play at Clinton on Friday, October 12. Their final two games, against Powell and Fulton, will be at home on October 19 and 25.
Here is a summary of the first seven games. [Read more…]
Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium are pictured above on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
The Oak Ridge City Council on Tuesday will hear an update on the progress and next steps in the Blankenship Field revitalization project and an update on energy savings projects.
The update on the Blankenship Field project, which includes the installation of synthetic turf, will be given by Jon Hetrick, Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks director. [Read more…]
Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium are pictured above on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
The renovations at Blankenship Field, including the installation of synthetic turf, won’t start until after this year’s football season ends, officials said Thursday.
At one time, there had been hopes that the renovation work would have started this past January and be finished by this June. Then, after an $800,000 contract was approved in June, there had still been the possibility that the work could be complete this summer, on or around the first home football game in August.
But on Thursday, the City of Oak Ridge announced a decision to wait until the Oak Ridge High School football season is complete to begin the renovations.
“The decision was based on the contractor’s estimate that the project could not be completed without impacting the first three home football games,” a city press release said. [Read more…]
Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium are pictured above on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was published at 4:15 p.m. June 19 and updated at 6 p.m. June 20.
The Oak Ridge City Council on Tuesday approved a $800,000 contract to buy and install synthetic turf at Blankenship Field.
Council approved the contract in 5-0 vote during a special meeting Tuesday evening in the Multipurpose Room in the Central Services Complex in central Oak Ridge.
The contract was awarded to Field Turf USA Inc. of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. The company has a regional office in Calhoun, Georgia.
The contract says the purchase and installation of the synthetic turf are not to exceed $800,000. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, will consider an in-kind design agreement for renovation work at Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium. (Photo by City of Oak Ridge)
The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday will consider an in-kind design agreement for renovation work at Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium and $70,000 in funding for renovations for Anderson County General Sessions Court, Division II, which is moving to a county-owned building on Emory Valley Road.
The Blankenship Field design contract would be awarded to Barge Design Solutions of Knoxville. It would be an in-kind donation to the project, valued at up to $50,000, and used to help meet the requirement to have matching funds for a Local Park and Recreation Fund grant awarded to the city by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. That $496,000 grant required a 50 percent local match, which is to come from the Blankenship Field Revitalization Foundation.
The Barge Design Solutions work would include surveying, civil engineering, landscape design, permitting, and construction administration.
The roughly $1 million project is called the Oak Ridge Blankenship Field Renovation and Trailhead Improvement Project. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Police Department found a small crater that might have been caused by an explosion in mulch at a playground at Milt Dickens Park in east Oak Ridge late Monday afternoon, Jan. 15, 2018. The crater pictured here the next morning, Tuesday morning, measured about 4.5 feet across and one foot deep, but the hole had been enlarged by officers taking dirt samples during the investigation. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
The juvenile arrested Tuesday in connection with recent explosions in Oak Ridge has been charged with two counts of possession or manufacture of prohibited weapons, a Class B felony, authorities said Wednesday.
The juvenile appeared in juvenile court for a detention hearing on Wednesday and was released, the City of Oak Ridge said in a press release.
“The investigation is continuing,” the city said. “No additional information will be released at this time.”
The student, an Oak Ridge High School student who has not been publicly identified because he is a juvenile, was arrested Tuesday after the Oak Ridge Police Department found evidence in a car that was connected to two recent explosions, one at Blankenship Field and the other at Milt Dickens Park, authorities said. [Read more…]
