A Look Back, March 26

50 Years Ago

■A local man has offered to provide a house free of charge for a Bay State family whose home was badly damaged by a fire Friday. Ralph Barnes has volunteered the use of the house at 543 Riverside Drive to the Harold F. Duffy family. The nine members of the Duffy family were driven from their home at 105 Hinckley St. by a fire Friday evening.

■A would-be robber, wearing a silk stocking over his face, got away with no money this morning after attempting to rob Todd’s World of Furniture store on King St. Store manager John Guillot said that shortly after he opened the shop, a masked man entered and demanded “all the money in the store.” Guillot added, “When he realized that there was no money here, he just turned and walked out.”

25 Years Ago

■After sustaining heavy water damage last month when the restaurant next door burned down, the Del Raye Bar & Grill at 1 Bridge St. will reopen to the public Wednesday. Following the Feb. 18 fire that destroyed the Paradise City Tavern, work has been under way to clean up and repair the interior of the Del Raye.

■Hadley school curriculum director Nicholas Young will soon have a new title: superintendent of schools. Young agreed this week to take over the post when Anne Finck leaves the job in June 2001.

10 Years Ago

■Easthampton schools are now in the running for a building project funded by the state, with one possibility being a new school that would house students in kindergarten through grade 8. The Massachusetts School Building Authority in Boston has approved Easthampton along with schools in two other districts for a 270-day period of eligibility to receive state funding for a new building or renovation project.

■Daguerreotype, a long-abandoned photograph technique, was the word that propelled the Daily Hampshire Gazette’s team, “The Headliners,” to its fourth victory at the Northampton Adult Spelling Bee. The team, made up of Gazette staffers Ellie Cook, Laurel Gardner and James Pentland, bested 29 other teams at the JFK Middle School Wednesday evening in front of a crowd of about 200 people.