■Last year 25 of the Arcadia Audubon Club’s membership of 100 volunteered to help the director of the Wildlife Refuge in Easthampton erect an observation tower overlooking the marsh. Almost to the day the project has been completed in one year. The platform is enclosed and weatherproof. Openings permit viewing the marsh on one side and the woods and hillside on the opposite side.
■The Northampton Redevelopment Authority has called for bids on demolishing seven buildings located within the city’s industrial park. Demolition of the buildings on the 100-acre plot will lead to the first step in the actual site development of the project which has been in the works for the last five years.
■Age and experience triumphed over youth on the playing field of ideas last night at Northampton High School. A five-member team of parents crushed a like number of students in a contest modeled on the “As Schools Match Wits” program. Roger Taylor, 17, ascribed the defeat to “socio-economic bias” and other things. “If they hadn’t given us sugar, we would have won,” he said, referring to the two tubs of Bart’s ice cream available to participants.
■There will be a rally tonight in downtown Northampton to celebrate the Supreme Court decision that is being hailed by many as the biggest victory ever for gay rights. In its ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that prohibited communities in that state from enacting laws to protect gay people from discrimination.
■Officials are dubbing it “our golden spike,” after the historic joining of the Union and Central Pacific railroads in the 1860s. This weekend, celebrations will mark the joining of Easthampton and Northampton via the completed Manhan Rail Trail bridge over Route 10.
■As $4 a gallon gasoline becomes commonplace, drivers are making tough choices: scaling back vacations, driving less or ditching the car altogether. And a new Associated Press-Gfk poll shows the impact of sustained high prices is spreading among seniors and higher-income Americans.