Community Calendar

A timely and authoritative panel discussion on artificial intelligence (AI) will be presented on Tuesday, February 10, 2026 in Oak Ridge. The program, entitled “Railroads, Radio, and Artificial Intelligence,” will address the question, “What can we learn from our past experience with new disruptive technologies to help us prepare for Artificial Intelligence?”

Members of the panel will be Stephen Streiffer, the Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Lynne Parker, Associate Vice Chancellor Emerita at University of Tennessee, Knoxville; William Lyons, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tennessee; and Mark Buckner, Founder and Director of the iSchool and Wildcat Manufacturing at Oak Ridge High School.

The panel moderator will be Alan Lowe, Executive Director of the American Museum of Science and Energy and the Atomic History Campus at K-25.

The program is free to the public. It will be presented on Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at Pollard Auditorium, ORAU, 210 Badger Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN. Light refreshments will be offered at 5 pm with the program beginning at 6 pm.

This conversation on AI will be the first presentation in the fourth season of the “Our American Roots” program in Oak Ridge. Our American Roots is produced by the Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club together with the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning.

Semiquincentennial Celebration Lecture Series with Dr. Magra: 1776 and Tennessee: The 250th Anniversary

These lectures are sponsored by The National Society of Colonial Dames Knoxville Town Committee to honor America’s 250th Anniversary!

1776 and Tennessee: The 250th Anniversary - The formation of Tennessee was inextricably linked to the Declaration of Independence through shared Enlightenment ideals and westward expansion. Appalachian settlers established independent western governments like the Watauga Association (1772) and the State of Franklin (1784) by applying the principle of popular sovereignty. The Revolutionary War and the efforts of the Overmountain Men at Kings Mountain provided settlers with the leverage they needed to demand statehood as a reward for their defense of American liberty. Settler sovereignty culminated in the 1796 Tennessee Constitution, which Thomas Jefferson hailed as a masterpiece that codified the democratic spirit of 1776.

Dr. Chris Magra is a professor of Early American History and the Director of the Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War at the Department of History at The University of Tennessee.

Lecture will start at 3pm
The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
Limited free parking onsite
$10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

For more than two centuries, women have sustained Knoxville not only through care and community, but through education, often in informal, overlooked, and marginalized spaces. Long before classrooms were equitable or accessible, women taught children in homes, churches, kitchens, and community gathering places, carrying knowledge forward even when society denied them power, protection, or recognition.
This lecture examines the critical role women, particularly those on the margins, played in holding Knoxville together through education during the city’s first 250 years. From enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women who passed down literacy and cultural knowledge, to working-class women who nurtured learning beyond formal institutions, these educators shaped generations despite systemic barriers.
Participants will leave with a renewed understanding of how everyday acts of teaching and learning built community, preserved dignity, and empowered futures—and how those same forces remain essential in our present moment.
Dr. Melody Hawkins is an award-winning educator, author, and school leader dedicated to providing equitable, high-quality learning experiences for all students. She began her career as a science teacher at Vine Middle Magnet School, later serving as Assistant Administrator at Austin-East Magnet High School and District K–12 Science Facilitator for Region 5 in Knox County Schools.
-Lecture will start at 6pm
-The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
-Limited free parking onsite
-$10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
-RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Blount Mansion is proud to present Emma Patterson speaking on “Women of the Progressive Era in Appalachia” as a part of our Centennial Celebration lecture series!

Emma Patterson is a senior at the University of Tennessee. Emma’s honors thesis focuses on the nature of women’s reform at the turn of the century through the life of Helen Dingman, with information about Mary Boyce Temple.

Helen Dingman as a mountain missionary and Mary Boyce Temple as a local club woman, both dedicated their lives and careers to the philanthropies of the Progressive Era. My lecture will discuss the distinction between life in urban and rural areas of Appalachia and connect these two women’s stories to broader themes defining this region at the turn of the century.

• Lecture will start at 6pm
• The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
• Limited free parking onsite
• $10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
• RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Blount Mansion’s Semiquincentennial Celebration Lecture Series: Doing History: Engaging with Revolutionary Stories in Classrooms and Museums

This lecture is sponsored by The National Society of Colonial Dames Knoxville Town Committee to honor America’s 250th Anniversary!

We are excited to present Lisa Oakley, Vice President and Curator of Education at the East Tennessee Historical Society.

She will speak on “Doing History: Engaging with Revolutionary Stories in Classrooms and Museums.” Public historians and classroom educators are responsible for transferring the scholarship of historians into engaging and interactive exhibitions and programs. Curator of Education, Lisa Oakley, has 35 years of experience sharing the stories of Revolutionary and Early Statehood East Tennessee with students and the public. She will share interesting sources and stories from her years teaching with the East Tennessee Historical Society.

• Lecture will start at 6pm
• The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
• Limited free parking onsite
• $10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
• RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Blount Mansion’s Centennial Anniversary Lecture Series: The Women Who Changed Blount Mansion’s History!

Blount Mansion is proud to present local living legend, Laura Still, for our Centennial Anniversary Lecture Series!

One hundred years ago, in a time of fluctuating values and new cultural concepts, a group of women banded together to salvage a piece of our disappearing past: the Blount Mansion.

Meet the women who had the vision to see a decaying old house as the birthplace of Tennessee and took on the tremendous challenge of saving it for future generations.

Native East Tennessean Laura Still is a published poet, playwright, and local history author. She created Knoxville Walking Tours in 2012 and works full-time as a storyteller and walking history guide. She has researched and written 15 tours, including three ghost walks. She is partnered with the Knoxville History Project and proceeds from her tours support KHP and other history-oriented nonprofits in Knoxville. Co-owner of Celtic Cat Publishing since 2016, she has four published books: Guardians (2009), Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 1, (2010), A Haunted History of Knoxville (2014), and A Fair Shake: The Leaders of the Fight for Women’s Rights in Knoxville (2021), in addition to several articles about notable women in Knoxville history.

• Lecture will start at 6pm
• The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
• Limited free parking onsite
• $10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
• RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Blount Mansion's Semiquincentennial Celebration Lecture Series - A Government of Laws and Not of Men The Structural Foundations of Constitutional Liberty

Blount Mansion is proud to present Dr. Josh Dunn of the University of Tennessee who will speak on "A Government of Laws and Not of Men The Structural Foundations of Constitutional Liberty." This lecture will explore the structural safeguards the Framers designed to protect liberty before the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. America’s most enduring defense of individual rights arises from this constitutional architecture that diffuses authority and restrains the abuse of power. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 84 that "the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.” This constitutional logic, in turn, shows why a self-governing republic depends on the informed participation of citizens.

These lectures are sponsored by The National Society of Colonial Dames Knoxville Town Committee to honor America’s 250th Anniversary!

-Lecture starts at 6pm
-The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West -Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902
-Light refreshments will be served
-Limited free parking onsite
-$10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
-RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Blount Mansion’s Semiquincentennial Celebration Lecture Series with Dr. Katy Chiles - Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution

This lecture is sponsored by The National Society of Colonial Dames Knoxville Town Committee to honor America’s 250th Anniversary!

Blount Mansion is proud to present Dr. Katy Chiles of the University of Tennessee. She will speak on ”Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution.”
Phillis Wheatley was a Black poet enslaved in Boston during the American Revolution.

This talk discusses how her poetry takes up the themes of liberty, freedom, and slavery and how she started the African American literary tradition.
Katy Chiles is an Associate Professor of English and Affiliate Faculty in Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee. Her first book, Transformable Race: Surprising Metamorphoses in the Literatures of Early America was published by Oxford University Press, and her scholarship has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Antiquarian Society. With Professor Cassander Smith (University of Alabama), she is Co-Editor of Early American Literature.

• Lecture will start at 6pm
• The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
• Limited free parking onsite
• $10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
• RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org