Cindy Jack has been named managing editor of the Athol Daily News. She has been employed as a reporter at the Daily News since October 1990.
The Athol-Royalston Regional School District held its geography bee finals for grades 4-6 at Pleasant Street School recently. Twenty-two students from five district schools participated. The district champion is Claire Russo, a sixth grader at Riverbend with 27 correct answers.
Airport manager Len Bedaw has confirmed that Don Law Co. of Boston, the region’s leading concert promoter, has contacted the airport commission and will make a formal presentation to the group this week on the possibility of a Pearl Jam concert at the airport. In order for the concert to come off, the airport commission would have to approve the show and gain approval from various town agencies.
Mrs. Helene Holmes was honored by the Orange Revitalization Partnership for her involvement with the youth of Orange. Members of the partnership presented Ms. Holmes with flowers donated by True’s Florist of Orange and told her how much they appreciate the time and energy she gives. They made the presentation in her 5th grade class at Butterfield School where she has been a teacher for approximately 20 years.
Kenneth Songer, owner of North Quabbin Computer on South Main Street, Orange, recently donated an Epson ink jet printer to the town office of administrative assistant Stephen Smyder. He donated the printer because there were no funds available in the town budget.
A group of parents and educators is hoping to take advantage of a state initiative looking for innovations in education, by setting up a charter school composed of students from grades 7-12 in the Union 28 towns of Wendell, New Salem, Shutesbury and Leverett. According to the group’s representative, Sofia Fox, the state is not requiring charter schools to have a specific curriculum or even that teachers be state certified. It is not known whether the school will have to operate under recent Department of Education requirements which mandated five and one half hours of core learning each day.
Proponents of a boost in the minimum wage in Massachusetts say it’s only fair, but the business community warns that it could hurt the people it’s intended to help and damage the state’s precarious economy. The Massachusetts Coalition for a Living Wage has proposed raising the minimum employees are paid from the current $4.25 per hour to $6.25 per hour.
A two-day rain storm which turned to snow, dumped 2.55 inches of precipitation over the area and left many residents with flooded cellars. Fire Chief Armand J. Dugas said his department worked around the clock, off-duty men called in to handle requests for pumping service. He said 21 cellars had been pumped out and his department had “quite a few” on a waiting list.
Senior Marie Chesley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Chesley of Athol, on the basis of her score in a homemaking knowledge and aptitude test, is Athol High School’s 1970 Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow.
The Orange Chamber of Commerce ratified the 1970 structure of the chamber, an executive triumvirate consisting of Erle C. Witty, Arline Gromatski and Jerome O’Toole named to head the organization. A committee was named to formulate a program to improve the recreational facilities, both juvenile and adult, available to the townspeople. Serving are Per Paulsen, Thomas Sogard and Louis Bixby.
A bald eagle has been sighted on Wheeler Avenue in Orange. Mrs. Barbara Lynde watched the eagle chase a red squirrel and alight on a maple tree near her home. She described the bird as having a tremendous wingspan and said it was also spotted the day before by her neighbor, Mrs. Jean Fletcher. The bald eagle, emblem of the United States, is on the government’s list of endangered species and no longer is seen in most parts of America. According to Robert Coyle of the Athol Bird and Nature Club, the Quabbin is one of the few eastern seaboard areas which still have a few eagles left.
Little progress toward the school desegregation ordered by the Supreme Court developed in much of the Southern area affected. Schools in five Florida counties closed while teachers were being transferred to effect faculty integration. Two schools in Alabama were closed by bomb threats, but no explosives were found. In Alabama, where 140,000 pupils are involved in four school districts, only a few white children assigned to schools where blacks were in the majority showed up for classes. In Winnifield, Louisiana, white mothers cruised the streets urging white parents to keep their children out of the newly integrated schools. In Mississippi, two school districts – Indianola and Tunica – had turned all black, with white pupils and teachers flocking to private schools.
Information has been received of the promotion of Capt. Frederick R. Dame of Athol, to the term of major in the Army Air Forces. Major Dame is now on duty in France as engineering officer with the Ninth Air Force Bomber Command Headquarters. In this promotion he supervises technical activities concerning marauder, Havoc and Invader aircraft comprising the tactical bombing force operating against the Germans on the Western Front.
Lloyd Frederic Spaulding, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred R. Spaulding, and William Gordon Gale, husband of Mrs. Virginia Gale, both of Athol, were commissioned second lieutenants at Moody Field, Ga.
Miss Frances W. Hallquist, 25, of Athol, of the Army Nurse Corps, was promoted to captain in New Guinea, where she has been stationed for the past 18 months.
Pfc. Joseph Edward Mallet, of Athol, infantryman, was “slightly wounded in action Jan. 7 in Belgium” according to a telegram received by his wife, Mrs. Adie Mallet.
Pvt. Earl F. Gormley and S/Sgt. Charles R. Stone, brothers-in-law from Athol, were both wounded on Jan. 15 in the European theater of operations. Gormley was wounded in Belgium and Stone was wounded in France.
Mrs. Irene Haskell of Athol has received dozens of telephone calls from out-of-town informing her of shortwave broadcasts picked up in which her husband, Staff Sgt. William Haskell, 27, German prisoner of war, sends her word that he is “fine, in good condition and not to worry.”
Mr. and Mrs. Howard K. Blanchard of Athol have received a telegram from the War Department that their son, Pfc. Howard S. Blanchard, 22, infantryman, has been “missing in action in France since Aug. 13.” He was previously reported “slightly wounded in action” in a telegram they had received here last Sept. 17.
Orange selectmen will not renew the lease of the Orange Theatre to the Garbose Brothers of Athol. The lease of Orange Town Hall for moving pictures to the Garbose Brothers expires Feb. 15.
Mrs. Myrtha Gale of Tully has received a letter dictated by her husband, Pvt. David M. Gale, infantryman, informing her of injuries he had received. The letter was written from somewhere in France where he was hospitalized.
Lt. Vernon Jackson, navigator in the 15th Air Force Italy, son of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Jackson of Orange, has been reported missing over Hungary.