THE PRINCESS IS DOWN TO HER SKELETON!

I visited the Princess today and she's pretty much stripped down to her skeleton, or as close to it as necessary to bring her back to life.  It's now time for the real restoration work to begin.

The plan is to put her back as she was in 1939, or as close to how she debuted after the second fire as possible.  However, everything will be modernized and brought up to today's codes.  It won't be an easy job, because all we have to go by are old handbill drawings.  No actual photos exist, or at least none have been found.

The auditorium will soon be filled with scaffolding so the lighting and ceiling can be restored, as well as the walls.  This will be a very exciting time, especially for me, because I can then begin the real documentation of the restoration.  These photos can be used years in the future at such a time another restoration begins.

I predict that the Princess, this time around, will get even more use than before.  She will be teaching our children the arts and entertaining us in more different ways than ever.

Click on the photos to enlarge!

LEADERSHIP ROANE COUNTY VISITS THE PRINCESS

The current “Leadership Roane County*” class, along with a group of long-time dedicated Princess supporters, came to the Princess Complex this past October to hear about “the dream” and tour the “under construction” Princess Theatre.

The large group was greeted by Bill Landry, who introduced Mayor Chris Mason, architect Frank Sparkman, and Channel 15 control room engineer Bill Radice.  The speakers laid out what the new TV station means to Roane County and its capabilities.  They further explained how the TV studio will be tied to the events taking place within the Princess auditorium and around Roane County.  It was easy to see just what the “hands on” experience, coupled with formal classwork, will mean to the interested college and high school students of Roane and surrounding counties. 

 

*The basic premise of Leadership Roane County was to be that the future of our County is not a vast unknown over which we have no control, but rather it is a product of how community leaders manage circumstances and choices. It was understood that responsible, well-informed leaders, armed with a broadened perspective, could influence the course of events. With these thoughts in mind, the first Leadership Class was started and completed in 1985.

Leadership Roane County will continue to provide a valuable service for years to come through its ability to develop a cadre of informed leaders who will be active in community life and who will support a volunteer program dedicated to the positive growth of Roane County.

CHANNEL 15 IS ON THE AIR!

Monday November 1st 2010, at 3:12 PM, is the day that Channel 15 RSCC/City of Harriman Television went on the air!

Preset your Comcast channel lineup to include this station. You will see some great programming on this channel in the future, but for right now you will only see color bars, a welcome or maybe even a "bouncing ball" to indicate that we are up and running. Coming soon,there will be sports, education, government, weather, music, festivals, theater events and concerts showing on this channel!

 

This has been a very long process that has taken longer than I thought but we did it on a"shoestring" budget with a lot of donated labor.

 

Thanks to everyone that helped and supported this milestone,

 

Chris Mason

City of Harriman

Mayor

865-765-0509

mayormason@comcast.net

 

The City Of Harriman owns the new station and RSCC will operate it. Students throughout the county including high school, TTC, and RSCC will be operating the cameras, lights interviewing etc...all for school credit!

 

The new station's programing will also be available via the Internet once the station is up and producing programing.