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Zoo’s adorable ‘kids’


Mitch Hurley, goat specialist at the Little Ponderosa Zoo and Wildlife Rescue near Clinton, holds month-old baby goat Iva, a Nigerian Dwarf, as zoo guests behind him visit with other babies on Sunday, March 10. - G. Chambers Williams III

Dozens of visitors to the Little Ponderosa Zoo and Wildlife Rescue took the opportunity last weekend to have play time with some of the spring crop of baby animals, including goats, alpacas, lambs and calves. The zoo offers exclusive access to the babies this year for $50 for groups of up to five people, or $100 for more than five. Visitors participating in this feature are allowed to sit inside fenced enclosures and experience the babies up close. Mitch Hurley, who is in charge of the zoo’s current crop of about 130-140 baby goats – kids – said they are the most popular of the animals people get to play with. “We try to pick out about 10 of the baby goats that are the most playful and have the best personalities, and let people sit in the pens and visit with them,” he said Sunday as the bright, sunny weather brought lots of visitors to the zoo.

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Norris Elementary STEAMs ahead


Breyden O’Neal and Charleston Leverton in Ashley Cox’s third-grade class at Norris Elementary School work on boat models with Nashville visiting artist Carlos Calderon. This activity is part of the school system’s arts integration program.

Subjects like science and math aren’t always tied to song and dance, but at Norris Elementary School they are now. “One thing I have learned is when you teach students through the arts, their retention of that lasts way longer than if you teach it with just a worksheet,” NES art teacher and certified arts integration specialist Alison Greenhouse told the Anderson County Board of Education at a work session. Greenhouse received that certification in 2021. “I think that it’s significant and really exciting to see when the kids are like ‘I remembered that because we sang about it,’” she said. NES Principal Renee Branham requested and will receive $26,000 from the Board of Education over three years. The money will help at least four more of the school’s teachers get the national certification training for arts integration programs through the Institute of Arts Integration and STEAM. STEAM stands for “science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.” The school board approved this funding at the Thursday, March 5, meeting unanimously, although John Burrell was absent.

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Type One Energy to invest $223.5M

Boston-based nuclear power innovator Type One Energy plans to invest $223.5 million to build a research facility and employ about 130 people in part of the former TVA Bull Run Fossil Plant in Claxton, TVA, state and local officials have announced. A part of the Bull Run administrative offices will be renovated for use by Type One Energy, but none of the power plant itself will be involved, said Andy Wallace, president of the Anderson County Economic Development Association. The facility will be used to develop the company’s prototype Infinity One “stellarator fusion” machine. It will use a form of nuclear fusion to generate electricity, a process the company calls safer and more efficient than currently used forms of fission-type nuclear power generation. For the safety part, “In a stellarator, fusion will extinguish itself within a few seconds if the power plant is damaged … in some way,” the company explains on its website. It’s also efficient enough that, “Just a single gram of fusion fuel releases as much energy as burning 10,000 kilograms of coal,” the website notes. “This enormous energy density generates the power for a 250,000-person city for a full year with only a few hundred kilograms of deuterium and lithium.”

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Norris sets up utility

The Norris City Council on Monday night passed on final reading an ordinance creating a stormwater utility, with hopes that it could help the city avoid future trouble with state environmental authorities over raw sewage spills from the city’s wastewater treatment plant. But the council still must set up an administrative structure for the utility, and decide on how much residents would have to pay on their monthly water bills to fund the new department. Earlier suggestions for a monthly fee have put it somewhere under $5, but the council has not heard any formal recommendations yet from the city manager on how much it might need to charge. On a 4-0 vote, with Councilman Chuck Nicholson abstaining, the council passed Ordinance 672, titled, “An Ordinance of the City of Norris, Tennessee, Establishing a Stormwater Utility.” The intent of the council is to set fees for residents and businesses that would pay for the operations of the department, which would operate separately from the city’s water works and public works departments. Nicholson from the start has opposed setting a flat fee for residential property for the stormwater utility, instead proposing a complicated formula that would create a sliding scale and/or exempt some property owners from having to pay the monthly fee if their property doesn’t contribute stormwater runoff to the city’s stormwater collection system.

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News

Type One Energy to invest $223.5M  Read More

Norris sets up utility  Read More

Daniel Forrester wins Chancery Court judge nomination  Read More

Social media policies to be topic of Norris council workshop  Read More

Oak Ridge land bank looking for developers  Read More

Sports

OR Rec spring sports registration now open  Read More

Anderson County soccer aims high with experienced roster  Read More

Clinton Dragons embrace 2024 as a rebuilding season  Read More

Oak Ridge boys soccer begins season with high hopes  Read More

Fired-up Dragons beat Cougars 16-1  Read More

Hawks drop two games in opening week  Read More

Senators get 4-0 start to season  Read More

Darkness for the Bat ’Cats  Read More

Dragons soccer opens with mixed results  Read More

CHS, ACHS softball start play at Panama City tournament  Read More

Wildcats fall to Baylor 3-1  Read More

Valero signs with Univ. of the Cumberlands  Read More

Clark to play for Southwest Virginia CC  Read More

Community

Zoo’s adorable ‘kids’  Read More

Rocky Top celebrates ‘Arbor Day’ 2024: Community embraces Tree City designation  Read More

Richard Chesbro: U.S. Navy  Read More

Egg hunt to be held on March 23  Read More

School

Norris Elementary STEAMs ahead  Read More

TN rewards Anderson schools for excellence  Read More

Board eyes $20M federal loan for new Claxton school  Read More

Photo Galleries

Anderson County High School Homecoming  View

Faces at the Fair  View

Scenes from: 2021 Victor Ashe Park Cross Country Classic  View

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