Oak Ridge Today

Atomic Rowing pair finishes 11th in USRowing Youth National Championships

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An Atomic Rowing team finished 11th in the USRowing Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Florida, from June 6-9, 2019. The women’s lightweight double consisted of Sara Kate White, a sophomore at Maryville High School, and Veda Seay, a senior at Oak Ridge High School. (Photo courtesy Rachel Seay)

An Atomic Rowing team finished 11th in the nation at youth championships in Florida this month.

The women’s lightweight double consisted of Veda Seay, a senior at Oak Ridge High School, and Sara Kate White, a sophomore at Maryville High School. They competed in the USRowing Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Florida, from June 6-9.

Seay and White had a fantastic weekend of racing, a press release said. Their boat placed 12th in time trials on Thursday, June 6, with a time of 7:29.200. Only the top nine teams advanced to semifinals, and the rest competed in a second-chance repechage.

Seay and White went on to win their repechage race on Friday, June 7, to advance to semifinals with a time of 7:47.576, beating a PNRA/Mercer team by about two seconds.

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Cross country: Oak Ridge boys, girls finish first in Cherokee Invitational

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The Oak Ridge Wildcats boys’ cross country team finished first in the Cherokee Invitational in Knoxville on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2016. (Photo by Nichole Zawisza)

 

The Oak Ridge boys’ and girls’ cross country teams finished first in the Cherokee Invitational in Knoxville on Saturday. Senior Jake Etheridge was the top overall runner in the boys’ 5k, or 5,000-meter race. Junior Genevieve Schwartz finished second overall in the girls’ race, and senior Abbey Greenhalgh was third.

The Oak Ridge boys had seven of the top 14 runners, and the girls had six of the top 13.

The first-place finish for the boys on Saturday came one week after they finished first in the Wendy’s Invitational in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Etheridge was also the top overall runner.

Oak Ridge Coach Allen Etheridge said Saturday’s race on Cherokee Boulevard in Knoxville is a hard race that was run during Fall Break, when the team is out of the normal school rhythm. The team has to run to “get its work in,” but is never “super satisfied,” Etheridge said. [Read more…]

ORHS a finalist for prize recognizing improvements in student achievement

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Oak Ridge High School

Oak Ridge High School is one of twelve finalists, and three high schools, competing for a prize that recognizes schools and schools districts in Tennessee that have most dramatically improved student achievement.

Oak Ridge High School is one of twelve finalists for a prize that recognizes schools in Tennessee that have most dramatically improved student achievement.

Two other high schools, Maryville and Covington, also made the list, which was announced Tuesday by State Collaborative on Reforming Education, or SCORE, a nonprofit organization founded by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

The finalists include elementary, middle, and high schools, and school districts in Tennessee. They are competing for the third annual SCORE Prize. School winners will be announced in October and receive $10,000, and the district winner will collect $25,000. [Read more…]

Local FIRST robotics teams dominate regionals, advance to national competition

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First Robotics Competition

From left, Oak Ridge High School’s Andreas Franco feeds discs into the team’s robot as Tag Groff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory mentor Mark Buckner, and Amelia DiAngelo manage the controls. (Photo by Jason Richards/ORNL)

Frisbee-flinging robots took over the Knoxville Convention Center last weekend, as thousands of high school students, mentors, and volunteers gathered for the third annual FIRST robotics Smoky Mountains regional competition.

Local teams Hardin Valley Academy, Oak Ridge High School, and Halls High School netted the championship title in a nail-biting finale at the regional event, qualifying them to compete in the national finals held April 24-27 in St. Louis. A team from Roane County High School, which won the Rookie All Star award, is also bound for nationals. The four high schools are among 14 teams sponsored by UT-Battelle, the managing contractor of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The FIRST robotics competition gives high school teams six weeks to design, build, and program a complex robot that can meet the intense demands of the year’s game. Throwing discs and climbing pyramids were among the challenges of the 2013 game, called Ultimate Ascent. [Read more…]