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In today's newsletter:
Also on today's calendar: Trivia Night @ The Greens and 9 more events.
Today's riddle: What do you call a one-legged Big Foot? 🤔 (Answer below!)
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1. 2026 Wheat Community homecoming (themountainpress.com) — Descendants and friends of the former Wheat community will gather in Oak Ridge on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026, at George Jones Memorial Baptist Church off Blair Road for their annual homecoming. Starting at 11 a.m., the event will feature historical displays, speakers, and time to share memories of the area displaced for the Manhattan Project, with everyone invited to bring dinner and stay.
2. TVA to receive historic nuclear reactor permit with Lee, Blackburn watching (timesfreepress.com) — A new 300‑megawatt small modular reactor is planned for Oak Ridge, with federal regulators set to issue TVA a historic construction permit at a ceremony attended by top Tennessee officials. While no construction start date is set for the Clinch River Nuclear Site, the project could shape future power generation and jobs affecting Oak Ridge and the wider Tennessee Valley.
3. You may see smoke in Oak Ridge on Tuesday. Here's why (wvlt.tv) — If you notice smoke over Oak Ridge today, it's likely from small, planned burns on DOE reservation fields near Oak Ridge National Laboratory between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Crews from the Department of Energy and Tennessee Division of Forestry will tightly manage under-10-acre fires, which may be visible from local roads and neighborhoods in surrounding counties.
4. Appalachian People: Natives & Transplants ~ George Brosi (thelaurelofasheville.com) — A longtime Appalachian bookseller and activist spent his childhood in Oak Ridge after his family moved there in 1944 for his father's Manhattan Project work, later graduating from Oak Ridge High School. His life story traces a path through civil rights organizing, Appalachian Mountain Books, and ongoing social justice work, culminating in a forthcoming memoir from University of Tennessee Press.
5. How Kodak Film Detected the First Atomic Bomb (fstoppers.com) — Oak Ridge appears here as a key Manhattan Project site, where Tennessee Eastman operated the Y‑12 plant and a Kodak physicist once worked on radiation monitoring. The article explains how fogged X‑ray film led scientists to trace fallout from early nuclear tests, raising later questions about how much the government told industry versus ordinary families downwind.
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-- The Patch AM Team
P.S. The answer to today's riddle: Hop Squatch! (Thank you Terri R. for sending it in!)
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