50 Years Ago
- Northampton school administrators have proposed a pilot enrichment program for some fourth-grade students next year to replace the current AT program. The proposal involves individually assigning advanced materials or instruction to students to develop their special abilities, rather than segregating them in separate classrooms.
- Twenty-one persons from nine different countries became United States citizens in Hampshire County Superior Court yesterday during ceremonies which have evolved into a colorful, biannual patriotic display. There was standing room only in the court room as friends, family, schoolchildren and representatives from veterans groups and the D.A.R. squeezed in to watch the proceedings and to welcome the new citizens.
25 Years Ago
- Leonard P. Budgar, an old-fashioned, devoted city councilor known for tirelessly answering constituents’ calls in the Ward 3 neighborhood where he grew up, died Saturday. He was 85. In his 16 years as city councilor, Mr. Budgar worked to keep Northampton a “good place to grow old,” in the words of the Ward 3 City Councilor Maria Tymoczko, who followed in his footsteps.
- University of Massachusetts Chancellor David K. Scott says the state should not pursue big-time football on the Amherst campus without increasing its financial commitment to the university as a whole. “To move to I-A football without the context of investment in facilities, a stadium and help in the interim with the campus operating budget is madness and folly,” Scott said recently.
10 Years Ago
- Several Valley observers took issue Wednesday with Senate Republicans’ determination to block consideration of Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court. “Merrick Garland is well qualified to be on the United States Supreme Court,” said Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College. “There’s no doubt about that.”
- Two local nonprofits named new executive directors Monday. Nora Ranney will lead the National Priorities Project and Laurie Millman will head the Center for New Americans.