Credit: Submitted photo—

By JIM BRIDGMAN

50 Years Ago

Bitterly cold winds up to 30-miles-an-hour failed to sting the spirits of thousands of Irish and non-Irishmen who lined streets of Holyoke Sunday to watch the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Mayor Sean Dunphy, the only Irish mayor in the parade, led the Northampton delegation along the 1.6-mile parade route.

■Northampton firefighters received a call Sunday morning for a fire in a commercial rubbish container located at the Papa Mia restaurant on King Street. The fire was latest in a series of similar blazes throughout the city which have apparently been set in metal trash containers during the last several weeks.

25 Years Ago

■Northampton author Jonathan Harr, who spent eight years chronicling a complex legal battle, won the National Book Critic’s Circle Award for non-fiction last night. Harr’s book, “A Civil Action,” bested Amherst author Madeleine Blais’s work “In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle” in ceremonies held at New York University Law School.

Small is better when it comes to keeping students in school, say officials in Hadley and Hatfield — two of only 11 communities statewide that had no dropouts last year. “When you know every kid by name it’s hard for kids to slip through the cracks,” explained Anne Finck, Hadley superintendent.

10 Years Ago

■The thrill of rock climbing, without the risk and without even going outside, is now available at a new gym on Route 9. Central Rock Climbing Gym is a 16,500-square-foot structure just east of Hadley Town Hall.

■Instead of scheduling interviews for two finalists, the Northampton School Committee on Monday chose to reopen its search for a new school superintendent. The decision to cast the net again came just days after the screening committee learned that one of the finalists no longer holds the position he listed on his resume.