Jim Bridgman

50 Years Ago

  • An $8.5 million heating plant which was opened at the University of Massachusetts here two years ago sits idle today and will not be used this winter. The new three-story oil-powered facility cannot be used because of a complex problem with the one-and-a-half-mile pipeline leading from the plant to the university campus.
  • Debra Ann Murawski, 17-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leon Murawski of Southampton, was crowned Greater Easthampton’s junior miss for 1976 before a capacity audience at Park School auditorium Saturday night. She will represent the area in the state competition to be held in Hyannis in January, seeking the Massachusetts junior miss title.

25 Years Ago

  • The site of a former community program for veterans in downtown Northampton is to become an alternative special education high school enrolling as many as 60 adolescents. The move will enable the Hampshire Educational Collaborative, the Pleasant Street property’s new owner, to realize a long-held wish to offer an “alternative learning program” on the west side of the Connecticut River.
  • An Amherst man with a long background in marketing and public relations has been brought on as the coordinator at River Valley Market, a proposed cooperative grocery store that now has about 200 members. Russell Powell, who has been involved in public relations in the Pioneer Valley for more than 20 years, works for the market part time.

10 Years Ago

  • The large maple tree on the North Common in Amherst will make its return Friday as the centerpiece of the town’s annual Merry Maple celebration, which is marking its 40th year. The last time the large tree was lit was in 1994. Beginning in 1995, organizers put lights on a smaller evergreen in place of the maple because of the increasing difficulty of stringing lights on the tall maple.
  • Northampton Department of Public Works Director Ned Huntley is stepping down from the post he has held for nearly a decade and will begin a new job in January as Easthampton’s city engineer. “I wanted to get back to my roots, which is engineering and surveying,” said Huntley, 58, of Westhampton.