■Mrs. Judith Finehirsh’s first grade at Hatfield Elementary School has been forced to meet for classes in the basement of the Hatfield Public Library. The classes are held in the library because there is a shortage of classroom space in the elementary school. A special town meeting to consider a 4-room addition to the school is slated on Oct. 20.
■Tom Rush and the James Cotton Blues Band will perform at Smith College Friday, in a double concert in John M. Greene Hall. Although only in his mid-twenties, Rush has been a major name in popular music since the early 1960s. Cotton and his band have left their audiences begging for more at the Berkeley Folk Festival, Fillmore West and Café Au Go Go.
■People who live near the Yankee Candle Co.’s manufacturing plant in Whately may soon be able to get a breath of plain old unscented air. The company is now in the process of installing an odor-control system that will endeavor to keep the scented wax fragrance inside the building, and the odor from spreading throughout its Christian Lane neighborhood.
■A campaign to build a statue honoring Sojourner Truth received an enthusiastic response last night at a community meeting in Florence, with some saying a memorial to the abolitionist and freed slave is long overdue. The committee estimates the project will cost around $200,000 to commission an artist.
■WNNZ, at 640 on the AM dial, will become a permanent noncommercial station following its purchase by the WFCR Foundation Inc. The sale by Clear Channel Broadcasting to the National Public Radio station on the University of Massachusetts campus was announced Wednesday.
■The initial phase of a redevelopment effort aimed at revitalizing the Three County Fairgrounds will begin in November, fair officials said Wednesday night, a project that supporters say will ultimately pump more than $26 million annually into the city economy and create more than 500 jobs. “The idea is to modernize the fairgrounds and make it a year-round facility that will bring in tourists and revenue to the area,” said Bruce Shallcross, general manager of the Three County Fair.