Oak Ridge Today

Pint Night with Sam & Mary Ann Venable to benefit Front Page Foundation

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Mary Ann and Sam Venable

Sam and Mary Ann Venable will bring humor and conversation as celebrity guest bartenders at a Pint Night raising funds for journalism and communications scholarships on Thursday, April 13, at Scruffy City Hall.

The Venables will help the nonprofit Front Page Foundation raise money for scholarships from 5-8 p.m. April 13 at the bar and restaurant at 32 Market Square in Knoxville. Scott and Bernadette West, Scruffy City Hall’s owners, will donate a portion of drink proceeds to the Foundation, which hosts Pint Nights periodically with celebrity guest bartenders.

Sam Venable, columnist specializing in humor for the Knoxville News Sentinel, has written for the newspaper since 1970. A graduate of the University of Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he is the author of 14 books, most recently “The Joke’s on YOU! All I Did Was Empty My Files.” [Read more…]

Children’s Museum Gala will be virtual

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Sam Venable

Appalachian tales and mountain music will be presented at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge 19th annual Gala on Friday, December 4.

It will be the museum’s first virtual gala, and it will celebrate East Tennessee’s great mountain heritage with the theme “MoonShine on the Mountain,” a press release said. It will also feature Children’s Museum STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) mixed in with the entertainment.

Sam Venable, humor columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel, will bring his storytelling magic to the Museum, presenting Southern Appalachian Tales for the Gala audience, the press release said. Author of 14 books, Venable writes on outdoor and humor themes.

In recent years, Venable’s popularity has grown as a comedic entertainer, the press release said. His topics include how to speak “hillbillyese” and coping with the nutty life in which we live. He has teamed up with entertainers Bill Landry, a TV personality; Elizabeth Rose, singer and storyteller; and Jim Claborn, hillbilly funnyman, on the “Talk is Cheap” comedy tour at venues throughout the region.

[Read more…]

Sam Venable to speak at Anderson County Democratic Women’s Club meeting

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Sam Venable

Sam Venable

 

Sam Venable, a humor columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel, will be the guest speaker at the August 27 meeting of the Anderson County Democratic Women’s Club. The club will host a light supper and silent auction at 6 p.m. Monday in a meeting room of the Clinton Community Center, which is at 101 South Hicks Street in Clinton.

Venable, a University of Tennessee graduate, has written for the Knoxville News Sentinel since 1970, first as outdoors editor and later as a columnist specializing in humor. He retired from daily duties at the newspaper in 2014 but continues to write a twice-weekly column.

The winner of more than three dozen state, regional and national writing awards, Venable is a member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame (Class of 2009) and the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame (Class of 2014). His six-part News Sentinel series “Fragments of Hate,” published during Black History Month in 2014, won the Sigma Delta Chi feature reporting award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Investigative Reporting award from the Tennessee Press Association, and was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. [Read more…]

Venable brings humor to Aug. 25 meeting of Democratic Women’s Club

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Sam Venable

Sam Venable (Submitted photo)

Sam Venable, the Knoxville News Sentinel humor columnist, will bring his humor to the August 25 meeting of the Anderson County Democratic Women’s Club.

Venable’s presentation is titled “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up—Truisms From Real Life.”

The club will meet at 6 p.m. Monday, August 25, in the Clinton Community Center Great Room at 101 South Hicks Street in Clinton. Vernon’s Burnins will cater the event, serving the award-winning barbecue ribs dinner, at a cost of $18 per person. For reservations, e-mail Ann Mostoller at [email protected] or call Mary Matheny at (865) 483-8937 by August 22. [Read more…]

Humor columnist Sam Venable featured speaker at Altrusa meeting on Wednesday

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Sam Venable

Sam Venable

Humor columnist Sam Venable will be the featured speaker at a Wednesday meeting of the Altrusa Club of Oak Ridge.

Venable’s presentation is titled “You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up (truisms from modern life),” a press release said.

Venable is a humor columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. He began his humor column in 1985, and he is the author of 10 books and  a contributing author for many other books and magazines, the press release said. [Read more…]

‘Talk is Cheap’ on Saturday to feature ‘down-home wit,’ wisdom, laughs

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An event organized this weekend by the Clinton Rotary Club and Timely Topics will feature “down-home wit and wisdom, with lots of laughs along the way,” a press release said.

It’s called “The Talk is Cheap Tour,” and it features Jim Claborn, Bill Landry, Sam Venable, and Elizabeth Rose.

It starts at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Ritz Theater in Clinton. General admission tickets are $15, and VIP tickets are $25. The VIP tickets include preferred seating and a reception at the Clinton Civic Center to meet the performers and friends, the press release said. [Read more…]