■Francesco Cantarella, son of Prof. and Mrs. Michele F. Cantarella of Audubon Rd., Leeds, has been named director of public relations of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Cantarella, a vice president of the bank, is a former reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
■Utilizing the mechanism of a comedian’s anecdotal approach, tending to expose rather than analyze, author-journalist Tom Wolfe addressed an overflow audience at Smith College’s Sage Auditorium Tuesday night attempting to bring answers to the questions of what the young “Hip” generation of Americans are doing and along what road they are traveling.
■Six college a capella groups braved freezing winds and temperatures to offer a sell-out crowd at the Academy of Music a spirited competition at the Silver Chord Bowl, part of the “Four Sundays in February” performance series. As they did last year, the Harvard Din & Tonics won the namesake silver bowl.
■After 90 years as National Felt Company Inc., an Easthampton manufacturer has changed its name to reflect the evolution of its products. It is now called National Nonwovens. National Nonwovens has three manufacturing plants in Easthampton, where it produces non-woven textiles using methods from traditional wool felting and needling to thermal bonding and chemical bonding of fibers.
■The city took a big step forward Thursday in its quest to buy a pair of neighboring farms near downtown Florence for future use as an athletic complex, farmland, open space and possibly community gardens. The City Council agreed to appropriate $990,000 in Community Preservation Act funds for its portion of the acquisition of the Bean and Allard farms off Spring Street.
■South Hadley school officials are taking additional disciplinary actions against a “small group” of students accused of bullying 15-year-old Phoebe Prince in the weeks that preceded the high school freshman’s Jan. 14 suicide. The action follows a three-week bullying probe by South Hadley High School Principal Daniel T. Smith, who is setting up disciplinary hearings with those students.