■Students in the 7th and 8th grades at Immaculate Conception School in Easthampton held their art classes outdoors to take advantage of the snow, resulting in an elaborate display of sculptures.
■Miss Patricia Elliott, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Elliott of 7 Rust Ave. and a 1969 graduate of Northampton High School, has been accepted at the Atlantic Airline School for Stewardesses in Hartford, Conn.
■After six years of debate, meetings, studies and a lawsuit, the secondary schools in Amherst are shedding the practice of grouping students by ability. The grouping of students under the labels basic, standard and advanced has been denounced by some as unfair to minority students, who historically have been disproportionately placed in basic classes.
■Thomas L. Dupre has been named bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield. “South Hadley should be very proud,” said one local resident. Dupre, who has spent his entire career as a priest and administrator in the diocese, was born in South Hadley.
■The region’s military transport hub will get much busier next month as part of the planned troop surge in Afghanistan. Officials at Westover Air Reserve Base announced Monday about 500 reservists from the 439th Airlift Wing will be called to active duty.
■The Amherst teachers’ union voted Monday to agree to concessions that will moderate their salary increases next year, but only if voters approve a tax-cap override March 23. While the Regional School Committee chair called the agreement “shared sacrifice,” a leader of the group opposing the $1.68 million override called it “a public relations gimmick.”