■Friends and professional colleagues of Miss Elizabeth J. Harris gathered at the Wyckoff Country Club in Holyoke this week for a dinner party to honor her for her 42 years of service to children. Miss Harris joined the staff of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1929 as a case worker. When the Hampshire, Holyoke, Chicopee and Springfield districts merged to form the Pioneer Valley District in June 1966, Miss Harris was appointed the district executive, which position she has held ever since.
■The Hampshire Regional YMCA Day Camp will conduct one co-educational camp for boys and girls, it was announced today. For a number of years there were three separate camp units but because of limited enrollment this year, it has been necessary to consolidate the campers into one co-educational camp.
■University of Massachusetts men’s basketball games will be aired on WHMP radio again next year, as the Northampton station has been awarded a new four-year contract to broadcast the Minutemen contests. WHMP-AM and FM, which has carried the men’s basketball games for more than 25 years, had competed with WRNX-FM in Amherst to win the new contract.
■Craig Collins, a swimming instructor at the YMCA and a former Holyoke restaurateur, has been tapped as the supervisor of the new swimming pool being built at the John F. Kennedy Middle School. “He has a wonderful variety of skills and wonderful people skills,” said Recreation Department Assistant Director Cathy Buntin. “Once you meet him, you’ll know why we hired him.”
■A panel discussion, billed “And Their Views WILL Be Given Due Consideration,” marked the kickoff of a three-day series celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Iraqi Children’s Art Exchange and offered experts a chance to try to interpret the images created by children from Iraq and the U.S. The event was held at the Northampton Center for the Arts on Wednesday.
■Nearly eight years after most of the construction on the Manhan Rail Trail was finished in 2003, a 5-mile section that stretches from South Street to the Southampton town line is scheduled for completion this summer. The project was held up in 2002 when a 1,000-foot stretch of the rail bed was found to be contaminated with asbestos.