50 Years Ago
- A former math teacher, now an attorney, is suing the Northampton School Committee for $2,649 in disputed back pay. Atty. Joseph A. Pacella of Springfield claims that he is owed money for the 1975-76 year because the school committee refused to advance him on the salary scale when he earned a Doctor of Law degree.
- Patrick D. Cronin has been elected assistant cashier of Pioneer National Bank-Hampshire at a meeting of the board of directors, according to an announcement by John P. Sweklo, president of the bank. Cronin, a life-long resident of Northampton, is manager of the Pioneer Bank’s Northampton office. He is a 1963 graduate of St. Michael’s High School.
25 Years Ago
- Most of the 145 full-time employees of National Evaluation Systems Inc. ceremonially plunged red-handled trowels into a freshly mowed, 14-acre hayfield in Hadley Monday afternoon, marking the start of construction of the company’s new office building. The 85,500-square-foot, two-story building, located near the Mass Ventures Center in University Business Park, will put all workers of the 29-year-old company under one roof for the first time.
- The Meekins Library Building Committee continues to investigate the best way to proceed with renovation and expansion plans, including reduction of the project’s scope. Last month Town Meeting voters filed to pass a $514,000 request to fund the project by the needed two-thirds majority. Opponents said the library proposal had grown too big and costly.
10 Years Ago
- Though disturbing violence by and against police officers this week may have occurred far from the Valley, social justice advocates here are deeply troubled, with one saying the “soul of the nation is hurting.” Experts in Amherst and Northampton interviewed Friday say the violence is causing widespread sadness, concern and even trauma in the communities.
- A long controversial project to put solar panels on top of the older of the two capped landfills on Belchertown Road in Amherst is being abandoned out of concern that it might impact the habitat of the endangered grasshopper sparrow, according to a statement issued by the town Friday.