■Miss Alice Flynn, a fourth grade teacher at the Maple Street School in Easthampton, was recently honored by the Easthampton Teachers Association at the spring banquet. Miss Flynn is retiring in June after 41 years in the teaching profession.
■A four-step plan to make the Central Business District more accessible to traffic and pedestrians, and provide additional parking, entailing new north and south service roads, was outlined to the Northampton Planning Board last night. About 30 were in attendance at the high school’s little theater.
■Adults Only video and magazine store owner Robert Kraefft is boldly advertising his latest plan — to have topless clerks, male and female. If he is able to obtain the necessary permit, his Route 9 store in Hadley will feature “topless employees that will assist customers in finding certain magazines and movies.”
■A group of tenants in Thornes Marketplace has made an offer to buy the popular downtown shopping center from its owners and founders. “The details are obviously confidential,” said Paul Sustick, co-owner of Paul & Elizabeth’s restaurant, one of about 10 Thornes tenants who have been involved in negotiations since December.
■Six 65-foot freight cars carrying steel billets derailed Tuesday afternoon in Amherst, tearing up the tracks and blocking Station Road. Splintered railroad ties, twisted rails and large chunks of pavement surrounded the derailed freight cars late Tuesday afternoon.
■Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech has put the majority of its campus on the market — valued at an estimated $16 million — as it moves ahead with a long-planned consolidation. Among the properties for sale are a half-dozen historic school buildings, a gymnasium and support facilities on 11.7 acres on both sides of picturesque Round Hill Road.