■Short Take Off and Landing Aircraft (STOL), a helicopter, a gyrocopter, and a sailplane were on display Friday and Saturday at LaFleur Airport as part of an aeronautics conference at the University of Massachusetts. The aircraft have an ability to both take off and land on short runways. Heavy winds also aided planes to appear suspended in the air.
■At least 300 local students traveled to Washington, D.C., during the weekend to demonstrate their opposition to the United States policy in Southeast Asia. Four buses from the University of Massachusetts Student Mobilization for Peace made the trip as did at least once bus from the Valley Peace Center in Amherst.
■Steve Calcagnino, Northampton Center for the Arts director, will resign at the end of May after guiding the downtown arts institution for eight years. Calcagnino, who ran the center’s operations, including its successful First Night and other fundraisers, is entertaining local job offers in both arts and business.
■A proposal to hire civilian dispatchers for the police and fire departments will be studied by a committee that holds its first meeting today. The 10-member Joint Dispatch Study Committee will look at improving the quality of emergency dispatching for the police and fire departments.
■Good Friday was the last day on the job for Eugene Wisnouskas, a Northampton native who was the school district’s mail courier for 24 years. Counting the 30 years he spent on the city police force — Wisnouskas retired as a sergeant in 1985 — officials say his tenure as a city employee is among the longest on record.
■About 400 city residents could reside in a different ward next year, but that is the only significant change proposed by a committee charged with studying and realigning the city’s precincts and wards based on federal census numbers. State law requires the city to redraw the boundary lines of its wards and precincts every 10 years based on population shifts.