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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,”...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

By STEVE PFARRER

Just in time to coincide with Children’s Book Week, a national event established in 1905, the Massachusetts Center for the Book (MCB) has created a children’s literary showcase here in the Valley.The Mass Kids Lit Fest, a new book festival taking...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

By CHRIS LARABEE

In 1994, a new movement began to grow out of the Pioneer Valley, Berkshires and Hudson Valley, as a group of organic farmers banded together to form a cooperative educational program for farm apprentices.That year marked the birth of the Collaborative...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

A fire station, possibly combined with a new community center, or an affordable housing development are among the concepts unveiled for the front portion of the former Hickory Ridge Golf Course on West Pomeroy Lane, the 150-acre town-owned site where...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

HADLEY — Significant work and time for municipal staff associated with preparing for New England Public Media’s annual Asparagus Festival is prompting Hadley officials to examine whether fees should be increased and other adjustments made to how...

By AALIANNA MARIETTA

LEVERETT — Residents elected town officials, signed off on a $7.56 million budget for fiscal year 2025 and passed a resolution calling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza during their Annual Town Meetinglast Saturday.After uncontested elections, the...