■A decision regarding a proposed $5 million enclosed shopping center off Route 9 in Hadley may be made at the annual town meeting Saturday afternoon. Developers are requesting that the area be rezoned to business from partly agricultural-residential and partly business.
■Miss Dale Derwicki has been crowned Winter Carnival Queen at Easthampton High School by Principal Paul Caouette. Miss Derwicki will reign over winter carnival week, an annual event in Easthampton.
■The son of former Mayor David B. Musante Jr. was named today as Northampton’s finance director — a new post with new powers. John P. Musante, 34, will begin work March 4 and will earn $50,250 a year. Since 1992 he has been town manager of Lenox, in Berkshire County.
■Winter jackets — especially those bearing a Columbia label — are being stolen at an increasingly frequent rate from hallway lockers at Northampton High School, forcing officials to look for ways to bolster security. Since the cold hit last October, 22 lockers have been broken into, and as many as 15 jackets stolen.
■The rough winter weather continues to play havoc in the Valley, with snow and rain in recent days proving the last straw for century-old barns in Amherst and Northampton and a boathouse belonging to the University of Massachusetts women’s rowing team.
■An uninhabited home in Laurel Park that was already in poor condition collapsed Tuesday night under the weight of snow, according to city officials. Coincidentally, Northampton Building Commissioner Louis Hasbrouck watched it happen. “It was almost like it was in slow motion,” said Hasbrouck, who lives nearby and was monitoring the home.