Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • Pizza and hot dogs may increase school lunch participation that is down as much as 49 percent this year in Northampton, Asst. to the Supt. Richard W. Smith suggested last night. The school committee is wrestling with problems in the deficit-ridden lunch program, ranging from low student participation to a list of complaints from cafeteria workers who indicated they may consider forming a union if their complaints are not resolved.
  • Managers at W. T. Grant Co. stores in Northampton and Easthampton said today that their operations will continue even though the national department store chain has filed for bankruptcy. Manager of the Northampton store, Ralph Fortier, said the local store may be modernized and that “it’s been one of the successful Grant’s stores.”

25 Years Ago

  • The theft of some $2,500 worth of items including household items and valuable candlesticks, from a Main Street church will not deter the church from keeping its doors open as a community church. “There’s no question we’re very vulnerable,” said the Rev. Peter B. Ives, pastor of the First Churches, which has experienced the thefts.
  • It’s the final vinyl — the 10th and last WFCR Vintage Vinyl sale of used records, tapes and compact discs, to be held Saturday and Sunday on the Amherst town common. “We’ve had a really terrific run, but it’s very labor-intensive,” said Christopher Daly, individual-giving director for public radio station WFCR. “It takes a lot of logistics, a lot of volunteers.”

10 Years Ago

  • Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton met with donors at a closed-door event at the Delaney House in Holyoke on Thursday where she touched on the issues of education, caregiving, small businesses and America’s role in global conflicts.
  • Northampton Mayor David J. Narkewicz unveiled a detailed proposal Thursday that would ask ten of the city’s largest nonprofit, tax-exempt property owners to voluntarily participate in a payment-in-lieu-of taxes, or PILOT, program beginning next year. The proposal would ask these institutions to ultimately contribute as much as $1.78 million in voluntary payments compared to the approximately $193,000 in PILOT revenue the city now receives from tax-exempt property owners.