News
Sharing a few notes: High schoolers coaching younger string players one on one
By SCOTT MERZBACH
Carefully holding and balancing his violin, 12-year-old Heedo Noh, a Fort River School sixth grader, gets a suggestion for positioning the bow so it runs straight across the strings as he practices G.F. Handel’s “Chorus from Judas Maccabaeus.”“Good,”...
‘Home away from home’: North Amherst Library officially dedicated, as anonymous donor of $1.7M revealed
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — An avid reader throughout her life, who often brought her three children to the North Amherst Library as they were growing up, Hilda Greenbaum saw the need to improve the 1893 building to ensure it would continue to serve future generations,...
Political newcomer defeats Shores Ness for Deerfield Selectboard seat
By CHRIS LARABEE
DEERFIELD — In the town’s highest-turnout race in at least a decade, political newcomer and longtime resident Blake Gilmore defeated Deerfield political fixture Carolyn Shores Ness, 898-857, for a seat on the Select Board.Gilmore claimed victory...
Granby Bow and Gun Club says stray bullets that hit homes in Belchertown did not come from its range
By EMILEE KELIN
BELCHERTOWN — The president of the Granby Bow and Gun Club insists that stray bullets that hit two homes and a shed in the Turkey Hill area of town did not originate from the club’s long range.Club President Ryan Downing read a statement at the...
Town manager’s plan shorts Amherst Regional Schools’ budget
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — A $97.3 million town budget for fiscal year 2025, maintaining municipal staffing and programs and promoting climate change and racial equity objectives, is being proposed by Town Manager Paul Bockelman, even as concerns are being raised that...
Funding will limit ARHS track/field makeover to cheapest option
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — Widening the existing track from six to eight lanes and rejuvenating the interior grass field appears to be the extent of renovations that can be done to Amherst Regional High School’s track and field because of limited funding.While the...
New Hopkins Academy athletic fields nearing completion
By CONNOR PIGNATELLO
HADLEY — The red shed off to the side of the Hopkins Academy softball field has seen some use. For decades, Golden Hawks baseball and softball pitchers used it as a backstop in pregame warmups. But now, with construction on a new athletic field...
Around Amherst: Bockelman joins in launch of governor’s housing push
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — A statewide launch of a housing agenda by Gov. Maura Healey that began in Lynn this week included participation by Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman and Easthampton Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, who leads the Massachusetts Mayors...
The Lehrer Report: May 10, 2024
Mother’s Day is Sunday. Greetings and best wishes to all the women who look after children. It’s your day all day.***Garden report: Good news, the lilac has bloomed. The late fall flowers on the lilac bush did not seem to have an impact this spring....
School assessment, electricity program among items on Pelham Town Meeting docket
By SCOTT MERZBACH
PELHAM — An assessment for the town’s share of the fiscal year 2025 budget of $35.27 million for the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, a final step in approving a three-community plan for electricity to be supplied by green sources, and the purchase of...
Hadley Town Meeting OKs battery storage bylaw, honor Chunglo for service
By SCOTT MERZBACH
HADLEY — A bylaw to allow stand-alone battery storage facilities in town, though prohibit them in the aquifer protection district, and spending that includes a $21.7 million fiscal year 2025 municipal operating budget were easily approved at annual...
Super defers Amherst middle school principal pick to successor; one finalist says decision is retaliation for lawsuit
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — Interim Superintendent Douglas Slaughter has opted against hiring a permanent middle school principal despite a search that yielded three finalists, a decision one of those finalists says is retaliation against her because she recently filed...
Wheeling for Healing returns to South Deerfield to raise money for cancer treatment
By CHRIS LARABEE
SOUTH DEERFIELD — After a successful move to Yankee Candle last year, the 17th annual Wheeling for Healing event is back on May 19, as the fundraiser seeks to continue raising tens of thousands of dollars for cancer patients receiving treatment within...
Earth Matters: Honoring a local hero: After 40 years, Hitchcock Center bids farewell to educator and creative leader, Colleen Kelley
By TED WATT and HELEN ANN SEPHTON
This column honors Colleen Kelley, the education director at the Hitchcock Center, who will soon be leaving her post after 40 years.In the fall of 1984, Colleen walked into the Hitchcock Center — young, bright, idealistic, and fresh off a position as...
ValleyBike to roll again by end of May in eight communities throughout Valley
By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL
NORTHAMPTON — After nearly a year of inactivity, the ValleyBike Share program is poised to roll again throughout the Pioneer Valley.After Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra teased an announcement regarding ValleyBike on April 29, the city announced last...
Island superintendent picked to lead Amherst-Pelham region schools
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — Ericilda Xiomara Herman, a superintendent of a school district in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, will be the next superintendent for the Amherst, Pelham and Amherst-Pelham Regional schools, pending successful contract negotiations.Citing...
Amherst council confirms Gabriel Ting as police chief
AMHERST — A near-unanimous Town Council this week confirmed Police Capt. Gabriel Ting as Amherst’s next police chief.Six days after Town Manager Paul Bockelman said he would name Ting, a 27-year veteran and interim police chief since last May, to the...
Granby man admits guilt, gets 2½ years in vehicular homicide
By JAMES PENTLAND
BELCHERTOWN — A Granby man pleaded guilty Monday in Eastern Hampshire District Court to motor vehicle homicide and reckless assault charges stemming from a motor vehicle crash that killed his longtime partner and the mother of his child last July, the...
Amherst College store opens downtown in former Hastings space
By SCOTT MERZBACH
A new retail store carrying assorted Amherst College merchandise, as well as school supplies, tech accessories and snacks, is open at 45 South Pleasant St., as demolition of a building immediately to the south, and removal of an attached ell to the...
Amherst Regional School Committee proposes new budget that lowers assessments for towns
By SCOTT MERZBACH
AMHERST — The Amherst Regional School Committee has agreed to a new budget proposal for the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools next year that is nearly $500,000 less than a spending plan approved in March. The new budget means smaller 6% assessment...
