Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • Prospective candidates for mayor are beginning to move forward in the wake of yesterday’s announcement by Mayor Sean M. Dunphy that he does not plan to seek re-election. Ward 6 Councilor Harry S. “Buzz” Chapman, Jr., today became the first candidate to formally announce for mayor.
  • Most of the demonstrators who broke into the State House chambers in Boston yesterday to protest welfare cutbacks were from the Northampton-Amherst area. Neil Cronin, a spokesman for the group of protesters, said today that frustration after long efforts to prevent welfare cutbacks was the major cause of the unprecedented demonstration. It was the first time a group had ever physically broken up a session of the Massachusetts House.

25 Years Ago

  • Dr. Ira Helfand of Leeds will again urge world leaders to disarm their nuclear weapons as an elected officer of an international group. Helfand, an emergency-room physician at The Cooley Dickinson Hospital, will for the next two years serve as the North American vice president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
  • A Hampshire Probate and Family Court probation officer has been recognized by state officials for his work. Kevin M. McDonald, 29, was one of 30 people recognized by the state Commissioner of Probation during National Probation Officer Recognition Week in July.

10 Years Ago

  • A project that would replace the Amherst Carriage Shops with a five-story mixed-use building can move forward, Judge Richard Carey ruled this week. “While the project is large in scale, the proposed building is almost entirely within what the bylaws permit the developer to build as a matter of right,” Carey wrote in his ruling.
  • An inaugural food-truck festival expected to draw nearly 3,000 people to the Three-County Fairgrounds this weekend has been canceled after it was earlier postponed from June. Bruce Shallcross, general manager of the fairgrounds, said he canceled the event July 2 after weeks of “chasing” the event’s organizer, Rob Craven of CTInsider, for his deposit and paperwork.