Fountain Citians Who Make A Difference

James L. Blankenship, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.

Many of the intellectual challenges that confront us today can only be answered with forefront accelerators, sophisticated detector arrays, and high-powered computers.  Investigations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the United States and the Flerov Laboratory for Heavy Ion Reactions in Dubna, Russia are in the forefront of the search for new knowledge.

In those laboratories, nuclear structure groups produce nuclei out to the extremes including the limits of stability of proton rich nuclei and investigate their behavior at high excitation energies and angular momentum and their exotic decay modes and binding energies. To that end a new generation Recoil Mass Spectrometer was built at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility in Oak Ridge and a variety of sophisticated detectors were developed for use with it.

Recent research has been carried out with heavy-ion accelerators.  Some of the discoveries already include (a) existence of spherical and deformed shapes in the same nucleus; (b) super, hyper and octupole deformation; (c) cold and hot binary and ternary fission modes; (d) many neutron rich isotopes; (e) proton radioactivity, and (f) deformed magic numbers at 38 and 60. “

Although slightly edited for brevity, those words are from an abstract of a report on a recent conference.  Do you suppose that, during his high school years from 1946 to1950, his physics teacher at Central or the student himself could have imagined that a half century later such scientific language and such cutting edge investigations would be a part of the everyday experience of our Wall of Fame Honoree, Dr. James L. Blankenship?

Jim was born on March 26, 1931 in Knoxville, the only child of James L. “Lynn” and Louise Franklin Toole Blankenship Sr.  He completed grade school at Inskip Elementary and graduated from Central High School in 1950.  During his high school years, he was a member of the Ancient Order of Alchemists, the Junior Classical League, the Camera Club, the Beta Club, Christian Student Union and both the Junior and Senior Honor Societies.  He even found time to serve as a movie operator and library assistant and was chosen Valedictorian. When he was asked recently what he remembered best about those years at Central, he mentioned photography, his excellent teachers (particularly Lula Shipe and Clara Masterson) and someone named Jamie M. Gillenwaters--more about Jamie later.

Enrolling in the Fall of 1950 at the University of Tennessee, he proceeded to earn three degrees there:  B.S. in Engineering Physics (1954), M.S. in Physics and Electrical Engineering (1955) and Ph.D. in Solid State Physics (now called Condensed Matter Physics) in 1973.

Dr. Blankenship accepted a position with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1955, first employed by Union Carbide, then by Martin Marietta and later by Lockheed Martin.  After 36 years of service, he retired there in 1991, but soon joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee as a Research Professor for U.T. Batelle.  Based in the Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research (JIHIR), he works with the Holifield Heavy Ion Accelerator team and often serves as guest scientist at several other accelerator facilities in the United States.

He continues to conduct research in semiconductor nuclear radiation detectors, high speed analog and digital circuit design, instrumentation for nuclear physics research, high voltage power supplies (300,000 volts), gas-filled nuclear radiation detectors, electronic filters for signal processing, electrometer circuit designs for measuring very small currents (10E-15 amp) and modules for data acquisition.

A member of the American Physical Society and a charter member Sigma Pi Sigma Honor Society, he is also a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).  He holds three U.S. patents and has been recognized in Marquis Who’s Who in American Men of Science and Who’s Who in Science and Engineering.

Never one to bypass community service, he was a member of the Karns Volunteer Fire Department from 1977 to 1994 and trained as an Emergency Medical Technician, a CPR instructor, an Advanced First Aid Instructor and received state certification as a Fire Department Instructor.

A member and ordained elder of Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he serves on the Session and has been on the Building and Grounds Committee for twelve years, serving currently as its chairman.

Jamie Marguerite Gillenwaters, his high school soul mate, and James Lynn Blankenship were married at Knoxville’s First Baptist Church on August 31, 1951.  They are the parents of four children, Sylvia Lynn Williams (CHS 1970), Maria Theresa Schettler (CHS 1973), Bruce Albert  and James Lynn III.  Their five grandchildren are Charles Williams III (CHS 2000), Olivia Williams, Ryan Schettler, Jordan Schettler and Bruce Albert Blankenship, Jr.

The Central High School Foundation is pleased to honor Dr. James L. Blankenship at the C.H.S. Wall of Fame Breakfast on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. in the Commons.  Tickets are $15 and may be obtained at the school (689-1400), from a member of the Foundation Board or by calling Courtney Shea, Chair at 545-4316, Ext. 20 (courtshea@aol.com).  Other honorees at the Breakfast are Judge Tim Irwin, NFL football star, and singers Con Hunley and Ava Barber.  The Breakfast will include entertainment by Ava Barber and a silent auction.                                  

-J.C. (Jim) Tumblin