LOCAL NEWS

Sev. County city officials to meet City Mangers from Gatlinburg, Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Pittman Center will be meeting in the office of County Mayor Larry Waters today for their regular series of monthly board meetings. The Sevier Water Board will convene at 10 a.m., followed by the Transportation Board at 11 a.m. They will then gather at 1:30 p.m. as the Solid Waste Board. Generally, Gatlinburg City Manager Cindy Cameron Ogle, Sevierville City Administrator Doug Bishop, Pigeon Forge City Manager Earlene Teaster, and Pittman Center Town Manager, Steve Hendrix, are in attendance. Senior Center breaks ground in South Knox Knox County officials will be presiding over the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Senior Center in South Knoxville. The ceremony will take place today at 11 a.m. at the site of the center to be located at 6729 Matrel Lane. The Public Building Authority, working with architectural firm Adams Craft Herz and Walker, Inc. and Richardson Turner Construction, will manage the project. Construction on the facility is expected to be complete by the first quarter of 2007. Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, along with County Commissioners Larry Clark and Paul Pinkston, will be on hand for the ceremony. Governor to speak at UT graduation Gov. Phil Bredesen will give the keynote address at the University of Tennessee’s spring commencement ceremony. The university-wide ceremony is set for 8:30 a.m., Friday, May 12, at the Thompson-Boling Arena. Since taking office in 2003 Bredesen has focused on improving education through teacher pay raises and expanding Tennessee’s pre-kindergarten program. For the second year in a row, the state has pledged dedicated funds to recruit the best faculty from around the nation and the world to manage UT’s joint institutes with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In addition to the university-wide ceremony, individual college ceremonies will be held Thursday, May 11, and Friday, May 12. For more information on the general commencement ceremony call the UT Registrar’s office at 974-2101. Local scientists’ work aid in radiation clean-up University of Tennessee scientists have developed an innovative software program that helps both characterize and guide remedial decisions at sites contaminated by radiation, toxic waste or other environmental hazards. The software, called Spatial Analysis and Decision Assistance (SADA), allows those responsible for cleaning contaminated areas to build a comprehensive picture of the issues they will face in cleaning it. Land managers throughout the world now use it to develop plans to analyze and clean contaminated sites.The $980,000 contract from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will go to The Institute for Environmental Modeling (TIEM) at UT, which develops the SADA software.