■Miss Alice Whitney Alvord, 102, Easthampton’s oldest resident and senior retired high school teacher, died Monday. A lifelong resident of town, she first served as a substitute in the Easthampton School System and was appointed to the English staff at the high school in 1902, a position she held until her retirement in 1940.
■The Northampton School Committee last night approved a $496 salary increase for Edward G. Dowling, director of cafeteria food services. This school year all elementary schools in the system have gone to the closed school day, which means all youngsters will be eating lunch in school rather than at home, a shift that has increased Mr. Dowling’s workload.
■A businessman with manufacturing plants all over North America today bid $5.2 million to purchase the Florence plant of Summit Plastic Solutions Inc. Summit officials signed a purchase agreement with Paritosh M. Chakrabarti, an immigrant from India.
■Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” may soon be burning at the Mullins Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Though not officially confirmed by the Mullins Center, John is scheduled to perform at the UMass arena on Nov. 4, according to Pollstar, a Worldwide Website listing concerts nationwide.
■Southampton native Rachel Truehart was in the winning couple on the reality show “Bachelor Pad” Monday night, but in the end she left with neither the man nor the $250,000 prize. The 27-year-old New Yorker shed some tears over her lost love, but the emotional scene was nothing compared to the disbelief and anger when her partner in the competition opted to keep the quarter-million dollars for himself, leaving her with nothing.
■The nine people memorialized on a sculpture being unveiled Friday on Main Street had diverse backgrounds and interests but shared one quality: a love of the city they called home. The sculpture will be dedicated on the first anniversary of the death of business owner and community leader Eva Trager.