50 Years Ago
- A new city charter for Northampton lost out to Monday night televised football. Attendance at a special City Council meeting to discuss the charter dropped off sharply at 9:00. “Monday night football, here we come,” one councilor said as he got up to leave. Several other councilors followed, leaving only four to discuss the proposed charter.
- William Burke, the new chief of the Northampton District Court’s probation office, says he would like to spend more of his department’s money on rehabilitating juveniles than on adults. “It’s easier to change a kid than someone who’s been committing crimes for 30 years,” he said. Burke, who is 33, replaced Jeremiah G. Lucey, who retired in September.
25 Years Ago
- A retired Hampshire College switchboard operator has written a light-hearted book on the history of footnotes that a major reviewer has called a “small masterpiece.” Chuck Zerby wrote “The Devil’s Details: A History of Footnotes” for a little-known Vermont publishing house, but now three bigger publishers have contracted him about paperback rights.
- Though no work has begun on the site of the proposed new River Valley Market at the former Hill and Dale Mall on King Street, Rochelle Prunty, the store’s general manager, said she is confident once the co-op’s plans and financing advance, the owners “will be undertaking significant facility improvements there.”
10 Years Ago
- A husband-and-wife sailing team from Hadley who made seven around-the-world voyages were posthumously inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame last month. Irving and Electa “Exy” Johnson were among 11 inductees enshrined as part of the 2016 class at a ceremony held at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco Oct. 30.
- At breakfast tables and coffee shops around Hampshire County Wednesday morning, citizens pondered a nation in which a bitterly contested presidential race ended with a businessman, reality TV star and political novice winning the nation’s highest office. Meanwhile, an emotional Hillary Clinton told supports that the GOP victor deserved a “chance to lead.”