The Tennessee Division of Forestry said Tuesday that the Windrock Mountain fire that began Thursday is controlled.
On Tuesday afternoon, the size of the affected area was 328 acres with a containment percentage of 95 percent.
Representatives from state forestry were still at the fire site to monitor it, officials said.
[Read more…]
Marc DeRose
Note: This story was updated at 5:55 p.m.
A former Oak Ridge rowing director could become the next executive director of the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The ORCVB board of directors on Thursday voted 4-3 to offer the job to Marc A. DeRose, subject to reference checks. If hired, DeRose will replace former longtime director Katy Brown, who became ORCVB president in 2006 and left in July to take a new marketing and promotions job covering Knoxville and Chattanooga.
DeRose was hired by the Oak Ridge Rowing Association in August 2013, and he resigned from his head coach and rowing director position in May of this year, saying the job was “not the right fit for me and my family,†the ORRA said in a press release this spring.
Other candidates for the ORCVB job, which offers a starting salary of $45,000 per year, were Lila Wilson, director of special events for the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend, and Naomi Asher, executive director of CASA of the Tennessee Heartland. ORCVB board members said Asher withdrew her application, saying she wanted to continue working for CASA.
Wilson received three votes on Thursday, picking up one less than DeRose’s four. [Read more…]
A Georgia grandfather died and his granddaughter was injured when an all-terrain vehicle went over a 60-foot embankment on Windrock Mountain on Saturday afternoon, authorities said.
Lindon Joald Lightsey, 68, of Baxley, Georgia, was fatally injured in the ATV crash north of Oliver Springs, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department said. His 12-year-old granddaughter was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
Anderson County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Mark Lucas said deputies and emergency personnel were called to the crash at about 2 p.m. Saturday. [Read more…]
The Windrock Coal Miners Memorial Wall wall is 31 feet long and includes the names of more than 1,000 miners.
WINDROCK MOUNTAIN—Here are pictures from the dedication ceremony for the Windrock Coal Miners Memorial on Saturday and the groundbreaking ceremony in November.
Family members press forward to find, touch, and take pictures of the names of their loved ones on the Windrock Coal Miners Memorial after it was unveiled Saturday.
Family members press forward to find, touch, and take pictures of the names of their loved ones on the Windrock Coal Miners Memorial after it was unveiled Saturday.
WINDROCK MOUNTAIN—Today, it’s home to giant wind turbines that tower high above the Tennessee Valley and off-road vehicles that race up and down its gravel roads and steep slopes.
But 50 years ago or more, this mountain a few miles north of Oliver Springs was home to as many as 700 coal miners and their families. The mines have been closed for decades, but the memories have lived on, mostly in fond recollections and old black-and-white photos.
Pictured above are Carl Lively, right, who started working in a mine in Windrock Mountain north of Oliver Springs in 1939, when he was 16, and Manuel Tinker, who was born on top of the mountain and later worked in the mines.
Now volunteers are taking action to help preserve the history of the miners and their families. As part of that effort, they unveiled a Windrock Coal Miners Memorial wall on Saturday. It includes the names of more than 1,000 miners who once worked on the mountain.
The red brick-and-granite wall has been under construction for about six months, and several hundred people turned out for Saturday’s dedication ceremony at Lower Windrock at the end of Windrock Road, about three miles from downtown Oliver Springs. Some wept softly as they gently caressed the names of their loved ones on the memorial wall. Others proudly posed for pictures. It was an important day for many.
“It’s one of the greatest things that’s every happened to me, to see this,†said Carl Lively, 91, who started working in the mines on Windrock Mountain in 1939 at the age of 16. “We’re happy as we can be today.†[Read more…]
Pictured above are Carl Lively, right, who started working in a mine on Windrock Mountain north of Oliver Springs in 1939, when he was 16, and Manuel Tinker, who was born on top of the mountain and later worked in the mines.
WINDROCK MOUNTAIN—Volunteers who have worked for months to build a wall honoring more than 1,000 miners who once worked on Windrock Mountain north of Oliver Springs will have a dedication ceremony this afternoon.
The dedication and reception for the Coal Miners Memorial is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. today (Saturday) at Lower Windrock in front of Union Valley Baptist Church.
Descendants of Windrock coal miners, retired miners, and many others have worked together raising money to build the red brick and granite wall. The names of more than 1,000 Windrock coal miners have been engraved into the granite. [Read more…]
Rescuers have located three people stranded overnight on Windrock Mountain near Oliver Springs.
The trio—ages 19, 22, and 24 years old—were stuck in vehicles on a trail and called Anderson County 911, authorities said.
“Our dispatch mapped the coordinates and forwarded the information to the rescue squad,” Anderson County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Mark Lucas said.
He said all three were located. The two men were checked out by EMS at the scene, and the woman was taken to Methodist Medical Center as a precaution. [Read more…]
Ed Stephens, program manager for the Renewable Energy Program at the Tennessee Valley Authority, explains the 18 wind turbines at the Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm north of Oliver Springs.
WINDROCK MOUNTAIN—A Tennessee Valley Authority program that allows customers to buy electricity produced by renewable energy sources has generated about one million megawatt-hours—enough to power 68,000 homes, officials said Monday.
TVA considers the innovative Green Power Switch program, the first of its kind in the Southeast when it started 13 years ago, a success story. TVA said the program has helped prevent more than 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere. That’s equal to keeping about 135,000 cars off the road for a year.
And it’s grown from 2,000 customers in 2000 to roughly 12,000 today. That could be because customers today are more aware of environmental concerns and have a greater understanding of their power sources, said Patty West, director of TVA’s Renewable Energy Program. [Read more…]
A Georgia man celebrating the fifth anniversary of a friend’s recovery from a wreck on Windrock Mountain survived, but was injured, when he plunged 100 to 150 feet down a hillside on an all-terrain vehicle Friday night, a rescuer said Saturday.
“He was fortunate,” said Terry Allen, chief of the Anderson County Rescue Squad in Clinton. “He went off a very high embankment.”
Allen did not identify the man, who is in his mid-50s, because he wasn’t sure if all family members had been notified.
