Chesterfield News

By PATRICK JOHNSON pjohnson@repub.com PALMER - The state Firefighting Academy on Thursday awarded diplomas to 31 call and volunteer firefighters from 16 Western Massachusetts communities during a ceremony at Palmer High School.

The Cummington Fairgrounds played host on Saturday to the 3rd annual Hilltown Spring Festival.

A Massachusetts man accused of robbing two New Hampshire convenience stores while claiming to be a U.S. Marshal is due in court Friday.

Grace and Brody Calvert, 7 and 4, of Windsor place lilacs on the gravesites of veterans at Hilltop Cemetery in Plainfield as part of the town's Memorial Day observance Monday.

By CYNTHIA G. SIMISON csimison@repub.com CHESTERFIELD - If legislators on Beacon Hill need a reality check on what to do about the $5.4 billion - and growing - state budget deficit, they might want to visit this Hampshire County hilltown of 1,200 people.

Inn Nature in Chesterfield, Massachusetts, and Starlight Llama in Florence, Massachusetts, are two more bed and breakfasts where the power is supplied completely off the electric grid.

A man who took money from two New Hampshire convenience stores while claiming to be a U.S. Marshal has been arrested -- by real ones.

State Sen. Benjamin B. Downing doesn't think in terms of mileage when he leaves his office to visit some of the more remote communities in his district.

By FRED CONTRADA fcontrada@repub.com WESTHAMPTON - The Hampshire and Chesterfield-Goshen Regional School Districts are searching for a new superintendent to replace Barbara J. Ripa, who is retiring on June 30.

It will be months before local students have shoveled the snow days out of their schedule, but the summer camp industry is already preparing - and hoping - for children's arrival.

Announcement has been made of the engagement of Elizabeth M. Fortini to David Zachariah Farrell both of Northampton, MA.

They're raising a ruckus in the sleepy Hampshire County hilltown of Chesterfield, where officials are threatening to shut down a longtime camp on a Boy Scout reservation in a dispute over a temporary summer ...

An early-morning fire gutted a sugar house on Rida Road, near the town's border with Cummington.

The construction of a combined welcome center and liquor store in southwestern New Hampshire has been delayed over concerns about traffic flow and safety.

It was a wild week in Goshen - and an expensive one. The Dec. 11-12 storm that laid thick sheets of ice over higher elevations in Massachusetts put highway and emergency responders on 24-hour work duty for ...

The most intense snowfall rates are about over for Western Massachusetts, but there still will be lingering snow showers, complete with some additional accumulations.

Tree crew workers check an ice-laden tree in the center of Goshen on Route 9, Friday.

Friday's storm that coated the region under inches of ice is still wreaking havoc on hilltowns and areas of Eastern Hampshire County.

The ice storm is long gone, but the cleanup just started. Governor Deval Patrick toured western Massachusetts by air and put the commonwealth under a state of emergency after millions of dollars in damage had ...

The American Red Cross of Pioneer Valley has opened an emergency shelter in Williamsburg while another shelter is in the process of being opened in Heath to assist those needing assistance in the wake of an ice ...