■Bernard Herfurth of Northampton is probably the area’s greatest horseshoe pitching enthusiast and has twice been named the New England champion — once last year, and once in 1931. He is 60 years old and when not pitching bent iron rods at a steel stake, he is teaching piano and has been doing so for more than 25 years.
■Easthampton High School students will attend classes one day longer in June this year and will lose at least one day of their April vacation, as a result of seven bomb hoaxes which have occurred during this school year. The latest call was received this morning, and the school was dismissed while firefighters and police officers went through the routine of again searching the building.
■The Shutesbury Athletic Club, sponsor of a championship softball team, and a community center and watering hole for 32 years, has been dissolved. “I’m very disappointed that the club went down. There’s really a lot of history there,” said John Bell, a selectman who was a longtime member of the club and its third president.
■After almost four years of training and a two-hour test last Saturday, Amherst residents Manuel Frau, Ingrid Frau, Carolyn Frau and Kerry Wilbur were awarded the rank of 1st Degree Black Belt by the Amherst/Hadley Karate Club.
■Local officials are keeping a close eye on proposed state legislation that would make illegal the feeding of wildlife, including black bears, whose encounters with humans have proliferated in Northampton in recent years. The bill would enact new regulations and slap fines of $60 and $100 for habitual feeders of birds and mammals across the commonwealth.
■Keystone Market in Shelburne Falls is one of a couple of locations in town recently scouted by a movie crew in preparation for the filming of the movie “Labor Day” this summer. Paramount Pictures announced last fall it was co-producing “Labor Day,” starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, and local businesses say they have been approached by a location scout to see if their buildings might be used as settings in the film.