■For the second year in a row Smith Academy of Hatfield is the Hampshire League champion. They went down to the last day of the regular season to do it, but the Falcons upended co-leader Easthampton High School at the Easthampton gym last night, 67-51, and took the league crown just as they did last year.
■The Undercroft Coffee House, established two years ago to open lines of communication between adults and young people, has officially closed. A small group of youth causing problems because of alcohol were listed as the reason for the action taken.
Dian Mandle, Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce executive director, is leaving to become the executive director for western Massachusetts for the American Cancer Society. Mandle, chamber director for the past four years, said her last day is March 7.
■Spelman College in Atlanta has honored entertainer Bill Cosby and his wife, Camille Hanks Cosby, with the unveiling of a plaque honoring the couple for their $20 million contribution to the college. The school’s students also presented the Cosbys with mahogany armchairs.
■Four local school districts are among the 27 applicants vying for grants from the state Department of Education to establish Innovation Schools, which aim to provide alternative means of education for public school students. Innovation Schools function like charter schools in that they can be more flexible and creative in implementing curriculum, staffing budget and scheduling than traditional public schools, but differ in that they keep district funds within the district.
■“Strangers No More,” by documentarians Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon, who studied filmmaking at Hampshire College in the 1970s, has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Short Subject category. It’s the third time the pair have seen one of their films nominated for an Oscar.