A float by Second Baptist Church featuring a large sleigh and reindeer won first place in the Dec. 1 Christmas parade in Clinton. (Photos courtesy of Janet Hawkins)
A float by Second Baptist Church featuring a large sleigh and reindeer won first place in the Dec. 1 Christmas parade in Clinton.
Ridgedale Baptist Church placed second with a float featuring a large ark.
Anderson County Emergency Medical Services finished third.
We’ve added several new events to our events calendar, including some happening this weekend. Take a look here.
The Clinton Christmas Parade starts at 6 p.m. today on Christin Drive near the Anderson County Fairgrounds.
It proceeds down Eagle Bend Road, which is south of Charles G. Seivers Boulevard and runs roughly parallel to it. The parade ends at the Clinton Community Center.
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.”
The Clinton Police Department has identified the man killed after his car rolled down an embankment and onto railroad tracks early Saturday morning.
Chris Vann, 39, of Clinton had been driving a 1992 Mitsubishi on Carden Road, which runs parallel to the train tracks, when his car left the road, rolled down the embankment, and came to rest on the tracks.
A CPD press release said it wasn’t clear if Vann died during the first accident or when his car was hit by a Norfolk Southern train. Police said it also wasn’t clear how long the vehicle had been on the tracks before it was hit by the train.
One person died in a collision between a car and train in Clinton early Saturday morning, according to WYSH Radio.
WYSH said police are investigating the 3:30 a.m. accident and will not release the driver’s name until family members have been notified.
WYSH said the accident occurred when the driver’s car left the side of Carden Road and came to rest on the train tracks. An approaching train was unable to stop in time and struck the vehicle, WYSH said.
A second Clinton resident has died after a Nov. 1 head-on collision involving three cars on Oliver Springs Highway, authorities said.
Pat Smith, 62, of Clinton, died Monday at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, according to the Tennessee Department of Safety.
Smith was a passenger in a Hyundai Elantra driven by Alberta Farrer of Clinton. Farrer, 56, died early Thursday, Nov. 8, at UT Medical Center, authorities said.
Tennessee Rep. John Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican, pictured at right, and Liz Ragan, his wife, celebrate the legislator’s re-election to the Tennessee House at the Buffalo Mountain Grille on Tuesday night.
It was a good night for incumbents in five local races in Oak Ridge and the Tennessee House and Senate. With one exception, they were all re-elected.
Chuck Hope and Charlie Hensley had hundreds of votes to spare as they easily won re-election to Oak Ridge City Council. Keys Fillauer and Angi Agle, the two incumbents on the Oak Ridge Board of Education, also coasted to victory.
Tennessee Rep. John Ragan, an Oak Ridge Republican, won a narrower victory over former Rep. Jim Hackworth, a Clinton Democrat. Ragan received 699 more votes than Hackworth, according to unofficial results. He finished ahead by 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent.
The one newcomer elected Tuesday was Trina Baughn. She will join Hope and Hensley to serve on Council.
Gone will be incumbent Ellen Smith, who was soundly defeated. Hope and Baughn each finished ahead of Smith by more than 2,000 votes, according to unofficial results in Anderson and Roane counties.
Baughn first campaigned for a City Council seat in an August special election, when she lost to Hope. Hope was appointed to Council last summer after former member Tom Hayes resigned.
Baughn and Hope both said the August special election helped prepare them for Tuesday’s municipal election.
Andrew McCulloch, right, signs in at the Midtown Community Center polling station on Tuesday. Also pictured are poll workers Margaret Terrell, left, and Jim Young.
The training paid off. Hope finished first Tuesday with 6,887 votes, and Baughn was second with 6,739, according to the unofficial results.
Baughn, a communications professional, credited hard work and the efforts of some 20 to 50 volunteers making phone calls and visiting voters.
“We knocked on doors, and we went to the voters,” said Baughn, who is perhaps best known for her newspaper columns and work challenging city and school system spending. “The supporters that I have are elated that I won.”
Top priorities for the new council member are controlling spending, lowering the property tax rate, and reducing the city’s debt.
Hope, owner of Chuck’s Car Care, was not available for comment late Tuesday night.
It was a disappointing night for Smith, who served one term on City Council. She collected 4,624 votes.
“The results are surprising, and I don’t understand them,” said Smith, a research staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “I was pretty roundly defeated.”
A fifth candidate, business executive and Oak Ridge planning commissioner Kelly Callison, finished fourth in the City Council race, with 5,450 votes.
David Hughes, left, supports presidential candidate Gary Johnson and Sherry Bath supports Oak Ridge Board of Education candidate Keys Fillauer at Midtown Community Center on Tuesday.
In the school board race, Agle and Fillauer both trounced Leonard Abbatiello, a former Oak Ridge City Council member, by more than 2,000 votes.
“I’m thankful that the people of Oak Ridge put the priority on students because that was the focus of my campaign and the focus of Keys’ campaign,” said Agle, who was battling for a third term.
Like Baughn, Agle credited door-to-door campaigning for her win, as well as her daily work during early voting and the newspaper articles she’s written during the past few years.
Now, she said, the first priority of the school board is to select a new superintendent, possibly on Dec. 8. Tom Bailey, the current superintendent, is retiring at the end of the year.
Agle said she also wants to continue making improvements in school curricula and student performance.
It was the second time Ragan and Hackworth ran against each other in the state’s 33rd District, which includes most of Anderson County. Ragan beat Hackworth in the 2010 election.
Jake Phillips supports Tennessee Rep. John Ragan at the Midtown Community Center polling station on Tuesday.
This year’s contest between the two men was one of a half-dozen key races in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and it was expected to help Republicans gain a supermajority.
“I knew it was a close race,” Ragan said in a Tuesday night celebration at Buffalo Mountain Grille in Oak Ridge. “It was a hard-fought race.”
Ragan, a retired Air Force pilot, said Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly have cut spending and taxes, and created a more job-friendly environment. Jobs and education will remain top priorities for him in the upcoming legislative session, Ragan said.
Another local incumbent who was re-elected was Oak Ridge City Judge Robert A. McNees III. He had no opposition.
Neither did Tennessee Sen. Ken Yager, who was re-elected in the 12th Senatorial District. Yager’s district includes Roane, Morgan, Rhea, Scott, Campbell, and Fentress counties.
In other elections, the vote on a liquor referendum to allow package stores to sell alcoholic beverages in Oliver Springs appeared to have been rejected, with 486 voting yes and 519 voting “no” in Anderson and Roane counties.
Three-quarters of Clinton voters agreed to move the city’s general elections from December of odd-numbered years to November of even-numbered years, when they will coincide with state and federal elections.
Republican Kent Calfee defeated Democrat Jack W. McNew by a 68.6 percent to 26.7 margin in Roane County for a chance to represent the 32nd District in the Tennessee House, according to unofficial Roane County results. The district includes Roane County and part of Loudon County.
Unofficial results showed Calfee, who beat the incumbent, Julia Hurley, in the August primary, had an even higher victory margin in Loudon County: 72.4 percent to 20.8.
Here are highlights of Tuesday’s unofficial results in Anderson and Roane counties:
Oak Ridge City Council
Hope—6,887
Baughn—6,739
Hensley—6,301
Callison—5,450
Smith—4,624
Oak Ridge Board of Education
Agle—7,738
Fillauer—7,495
Abbatiello—4,988
Tennessee House of Representatives, 33rd District:
Ragan, Oak Ridge Republican—12,825 (51.4 percent)
Hackworth, Clinton Democrat—12,126 (48.6 percent)
Oliver Springs liquor referendum (To allow retail package stores to sell alcoholic beverages in the city of Oliver Springs):
Yes—486
No—519
Clinton charter question (To move Clinton general elections from December of odd-numbered years to November of even-numbered years):
For—2,556 (75.7 percent)
Against—819 (24.3 percent)
Note: This story has been corrected to show new vote totals for Ragan and Hackworth.
A Lenoir City man who remained jailed Tuesday is accused of punching a Clinton resident in the throat at his home and taking two Xbox 360 game systems and a Nintendo Wii.
The victim said he had opened the door for an acquaintance, Carson Garrett Hall, 22, of Lenoir City, at a home on Carden Farm Road in Clinton on Aug. 18, and he was immediately punched in the throat, according to arrest warrants filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court.
Oliver Springs and Clinton have received more than $800,000 in grants for water system improvements and housing rehabilitation, Gov. Bill Haslam announced Tuesday.
Haslam also announced about $1 million total in Community Development Block Grants for sewer system improvements in Lenoir City and a water line extension in Cocke County.
Haslam also announced grants from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for two local parks. One $100,000 grant will help Oliver Springs develop Carmichael Park and expand Arrowhead Park, and a second $22,000 grant will aid the continued development of Marlow Park in Anderson County, a press release said.
A University of Tennessee Lifestar helicopter flies Clinton motorcyclist Kevin Eric Gross to UT Medical Center in Knoxville after a Wednesday morning accident on Highway 61.
A Clinton man flown to a Knoxville hospital by a medical helicopter after a Wednesday morning motorcycle accident was listed in stable condition Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman said.
Kevin Eric Gross, 18, was riding east on a Yamaha XV5 motorcycle on Highway 61 between Oak Ridge and Clinton when he struck a Chrysler PT Cruiser pulling out of the Rocky Top gas station at Mariner Point at about 10:50 a.m., an accident report said.
The car was driven by Carl David O’Neal, 56, of Oak Ridge. He said he was turning left onto Highway 61 to head west as an eastbound vehicle pulling a trailer was turning into the Rocky Top parking lot, according to the report. O’Neal told Clinton police his vision was blocked, and he pulled into traffic to start traveling west when Gross hit his driver’s side door.
An unidentified motorcyclist was picked up by a University of Tennessee medical helicopter after an accident in front of a gas station near Mariner Point on Highway 61 in Clinton.
CLINTON—A medical helicopter picked up a motorcyclist Wednesday morning after an accident in front of a gas station on Highway 61 in Clinton.
Authorities did not immediately release the name of the motorcyclist, who was flown away in a University of Tennessee Lifestar helicopter at about 11:30 a.m.
