Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • Consumer advocate Ralph Nader told an overflow crowd in the University of Massachusetts Student Union here last night that it will take an “all corps press” to put the nuclear power referendum on the 1976 ballot. Nuclear power plants, Nader said, are being built “one after another” in the United States and there has never been a referendum on them.
  • Sixteen members of the Northampton High School Class of 1915 gathered at a luncheon Saturday for their 60th reunion in the Sunroom of the Hotel Northampton. Special guest was Mrs. Frank Prentice Rand of Amherst, a former member of the Northampton High School faculty.

25 Years Ago

  • The election is over, but the campaign continues in the improbable 2000 presidential race, with George W. Bush claiming victory based on an unofficial recount of Florida ballots. Vice President Al Gore’s camp insisted Friday that “this election is not over.”
  • A fledgling local software firm has struck a deal with Hewlett-Packard that opens the door to aggressive marketing of a new Internet search engine it claims will revolutionize how people use the World Wide Web. The local firm Chiliad — which is pronounced with a hard “K” and means millennium in Greek — is to receive $25 million from Hewlett-Packard in equity investment and loans.

10 Years Ago

  • Sanford “Sandy” Pooler, Amherst’s finance director since February 2011, will leave early in the new year, returning to eastern Massachusetts for a new job and to be closer to family. The Select Board Wednesday issued a press release that Pooler, who came to Amherst with 20 years of experience in state and municipal management, will become Arlington’s deputy town manager.
  • Jones Library trustees expect to hire an architect in less than two months to begin planning a project to expand and renovate the 87-year-old Amherst center library. With a request for qualifications document issued last week, Sharon Sharry, the library director, said Monday that trustees are starting the process of having an architect chosen at its Jan. 7 meeting.