■As the days start to grow shorter, the Northampton Jaycees’ Football Food Booth at the high school grows taller. Members of the Jaycees have been working evenings throughout the summer months to turn the blueprints into concrete. This structure will house a spacious food booth, ticket dispensing windows, and complete rest room facilities.
■Today, the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage will be observed locally with activities arranged by members of the Amherst Women’s Liberation group. Leaflets will be distributed on Northampton’s Main St. and workers will be at Kingsgate Shopping Plaza seeking signatures on a petition asking Sen. Edward W. Brooke to vote “yes” on the equal rights amendment.
■A former Leeds School principal, Kathleen Sheehan, made an impassioned appeal to members of the School Committee last night to treat custodians with “fairness” in contract negotiations. Sheehan said she was upset to learn that the school custodians weren’t getting what their city counterparts are.
■An Easthampton woman has left in her will a gift of half a million dollars to be used to improve the town’s public parks. Barbara Allen Richmond, who died April 30, bequeathed $500,000 in a trust fund in the name of her father Clifford A. Richmond, who was also a benefactor of the town.
Easthampton Mayor Michael A. Tautznik has selected a former city councilor with more than six years’ experience in municipal finance as the city’s third finance director. Melissa L. Zawadzki, 39, who served a two-year term as councilor-at-large from 2005 to 2007, is expected to start work Oct. 4.
■Hampshire County schools, battered by years of lean budgets, staffing and programming reductions, received welcome news this week, following the announcement of a pair of federal education initiatives that will direct approximately $5 million in federal funding to area classrooms.