Shutesbury News

People from around the county expressed their dismay with their telephone service, particularly considering many of them are living in areas with limited cellular phone access.

Earlier this year, I was on one of my longer walks, following a series of back roads that included Teawaddle Hill Road in Leverett.

Richard E. Kim, 77, died Tuesday at his home in Shutesbury, surrounded by his family.

Talk may be cheap, but there were few telephone customers who turned out Tuesday night to complain about Verizon service at the first of four public hearings scheduled by the state Department of Telecommunications and Cable.

Built all the way back in 1827, The Federated Church of Shutesbury has long been in need of a major overhaul.

In the beginning, there was the trash. Tons of it. Piles of it. The image seen 'round the world 22 years ago, was of Mobro 4000, the barge with 3,168 tons of garbage rejected at ports along the East Coast and even in Belize searching for somewhere to dump its load.

Do your phone lines snap, crackle and pop -- and drive you a little mad? Even as the clamor grows for high-speed Internet around the region, enough Verizon customers have been sounding off about problems with basic, old-fashioned telephone service that the state has agreed to launch a full-scale investigation into the quality of phone service ...

Arthur Goodhind Sr., a veteran of the Korean War who left Amherst High School in 1948 to join the Army, waves after receiving a diploma and becoming an honorary member of the Amherst Class of 2009.

Crista Zavala, front center, photographed with her foster family in Shutesbury last year.

The elementary and secondary schools would lose the equivalent of 50 full-time positions, or about 8 percent of their current work forces, under the budgets the School Committees approved Tuesday.

The Rev. Richard Jones, standing, acting pastor of North Hadley Congregational Church, delivers a sermon during the service on Lake Warner, located behind the church.

A law that would restrict building on hilltops, rules for adult entertainment businesses and a resolution aimed at asserting the importance of keeping local control of schools in the face of regionalization are among the issues to be tackled at Wednesday's annual town meeting.

Town Meeting agreed Saturday to keep a high level of cash on hand while reducing budgets for the coming fiscal year.

Town Meeting Saturday voted to make it easier to establish home businesses, agreed to open the door to wireless towers, approved a budget, and heard a report on school regionalization.

About $550,000 more in federal stimulus money is heading for Franklin County -- this time for schools that serve the highest concentration of low-income students, with Greenfield getting the biggest chunk.

Having one, three or six school districts in Franklin County -- rather than 18 -- could save $800,000 to $2 million, primarily by shrinking the number of administrators running the schools.

Federal legislation making the Metacomet, Monadnock and Mattabesett Trail part of the New England National Scenic Trail has been approved by Congress, making the 190-mile hiking network -- which now cuts through Northfield, Erving, Wendell, Montague, Leverett and Shutesbury -- part of the National Trail System.

The Amherst and Amherst-Pelham Regional School committees are in for a significant change of personnel at the end of the month, when candidates Irvin Rhodes, Steve Rivkin and Megan Rosa contend for two seats on the five-member Amherst board in the March 31 elections.

Seventh-graders come to the Regional Middle School each fall from seven elementary schools, often with different levels of preparation.

The School Committee expects to identify its top choice for superintendent Monday.