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By STEVE PFARRER

The Holyoke Civic Symphony has titled its 2023-2024 season “The Brass Menagerie,” not to be cute but to highlight a series of concerts dedicated to celebrating the family of brass instruments: the horn, the tuba, the trumpet, and the trombone.On May...

By STEVE PFARRER

On the morning of May 16, 1874, the dam on the Williamsburg Reservoir, up in the hills along the East Branch of the Mill River, suddenly collapsed, sending 600 million gallons of water roaring downhill.The flood, which soon became a 30-foot-high brown...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Responsible for $135,000 in student debt, Amherst resident Ian Rhodewalt observes that during the yearslong federal pause in making loan repayments during the pandemic, he and his family were able to get a vehicle, to replace a broken-down...

By STEVE PFARRER

Call it an encore performance. “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” the bestselling series of fantasy books by Amherst writers Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, has just been turned into a streaming series on The Roku Channel.That comes 16 years after a...

By RICHARD MCCARTHY

About a mile from where I live, there is a convenience store and a doughnut shop. For a period of a few years, a woman of perhaps 60 years of age could be found standing outside one of these establishments on most days. She would be shuffling her...

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 Monday, the city announced Thursday it...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — 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...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Construction of a three-unit, 10-bedroom home behind an existing home at 98 Fearing St., in the North Prospect-Lincoln-Sunset Local Historic District is inappropriate for the neighborhood, according to a panel that reviews projects and...

By JAMES PENTLAND

PLAINFIELD — Voters will be asked to approve a $3.54 million budget and other articles when Town Meeting convenes Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Dennis A. Thatcher Public Safety Complex. Polls for the annual town election, which features a contested race...

By EMILEE KLEIN

SOUTH HADLEY — Fire Distri`ct No. 2 voters will vote to approve a $1.73 million fire department budget and a roughly $902,000 water department budget during its annual meeting on Monday, May 6.The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the district...

50 Years Ago ■William A. Burke, president of the First National Bank of Northampton, announced at the monthly meeting of the bank held in the banking room yesterday that Gordon A. Woodward Jr. was elected a member of the board of directors to succeed...

Knotted up 1-1 heading into the top of the seventh, the Smith Vocational baseball team erupted for five runs to break the game open and pull out a 6-1 win over Pathfinder on Wednesday afternoon.Patrick Millin struck out nine over all seven innings in...

By CONNOR PIGNATELLO

BELCHERTOWN — Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School boys tennis coach Mike Locher has a Star Wars character assigned to each player on his team.After every match, he sends his players a game recap, along with a YouTube video of their Star...

By GARRETT COTE

SOUTH HADLEY — Fighting toe-to-toe with Veritas Prep in the fourth set of its first varsity boys volleyball game in program history, South Hadley was on the brink of history.The Tigers did just enough to pull away and claim a 25-23 win in the frame,...

By ANTHONY CAMMALLERI

GREENFIELD — Services for Christopher Hairston, 35, who was identified as the victim in last week’s slaying on Chapman Street, will be held Thursday at the Devanny-Condron Funeral Home in Pittsfield from 4 to 6:30 p.m.Hairston, a drummer from...

By JAMES PENTLAND

SPRINGFIELD — A former superintendent of Chicopee schools was sentenced this week to a year of probation for lying to FBI agents who were investigating scores of threats sent via text to a candidate for the city’s police chief.Lynn Clark, 53, who was...

Staff Writer

AMHERST — An author who has twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, earning that recognition and a National Book Award for 2016’s “The Underground Railroad,” will deliver the main address at the 154th undergraduate commencement at the...

By GENE STAMELL

 Columnist’s note: The following contains many parenthetical asides and seemingly unimportant details that somehow, one hopes, lead to a conclusion that the reader finds moderately interesting or entertaining or, at the very least, bearable.  Once...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — In the wake of the Justice Department’s proposal to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous drug, dispensary owners say the change would help their business, especially on taxes.“The immediate impact would be for the government to treat...

WILLIAMSBURG — Monday’s town election will be held at the Town Offices in Haydenville from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.No contested seats appear on the ballot, which has one vacancy, for a three-year seat on the local school committee. Incumbent Marissa Nye is...