■“Stop. Think twice before throwing aluminum products in the garbage.” This is what members of the Hawley Junior High School Ecology Club are asking the public — to save aluminum cans and products for recycling. The project is the innovation of Robert W. Jeffway, adviser to the club and a science teacher at Hawley.
■Smith College assistant professor of government Donald L. Robinson has been named a visiting fellow by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, Calif. The center is now framing a model for a revised Constitution. Robinson will be involved with this project, headed by Rexford G. Tugwell, who was a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust.”
■Collecting and channeling bottle and can deposits to create a fund for books and computers for the schools is the latest idea to surface from a citizens committee seeking money for the Northampton school system. City Councilor and Northampton High School Council member Linda Desmond said she is confident at least $1,000 a month could be raised in this way.
■The next principal of the Jackson Street School should be prepared to commit to the job for at least five years, Superintendent Bruce E. Willard told a community forum last night. There are 22 candidates so far to fill the position vacated by Philip O’Reilly who left last month after 2½ years on the job.
■A long-planned subdivision off Burts Pit Road is expected to move forward this spring, some eight years after being approved by the Planning Board. The development, originally called The Oaks but to be renamed Emerson Way, is slated to include 51 single-family homes and four duplexes.
■Matthew Ziomek, 17, of Amherst, set a world record, according to the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame. Ziomek caught a 17-inch, 3-pound, 5-ounce crappie at Great Pond in Hatfield on Dec. 23, 2010. It set a world record in the Catch and Release Angling Achievement category.