Sunderland News

A commitment to reorganize and revitalize the Frontier Senior Center is at the forefront of its Board of Oversight's agenda.

Easthampton resident Julie Chandler gives to the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund in honor of a brother who died in a car crash in the 1970s, but also, she said, because of the years she received help from the fund.

State police report some patches of black ice Monday morning and urge motorists to take it slow, especially in Hampshire and Franklin counties.

Wildcat O'Halloran is back in business, and while he is operating under the same name that first captured Valley hearts and souls some 25 years ago, his eponymous band has reinvented itself with a mixture of old and young blood.

Santa's public relations people have certainly booked him up solid for the next several weeks, judging from the number of restaurant appearances they've scheduled him to make.

No doubt about it, Sunderland's 1867 Old Town Hall makes a fantastic location for a restaurant, Blue Heron, that is, about a stone's throw from one of the largest American sycamore tree east of the Mississippi River.

Sales expectations were low, at least according to one retail group, but shoppers still mobbed the Hampshire Mall in the wee hours of what's come to be known as Black Friday.

First the good news: from pennies to big checks, residents across the Valley pitched in some $70,000 for the Sydney F. Smith Toy Fund in 2008.

Alice C. Jekanowski, 93, formerly of Sunderland, died on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009, at Baystate Franklin Medical Center.

A Franklin County community is stepping up to help out fellow residents who lost everything after a fire ripped through their apartment building.

Sugarbush Meadows, the 150-unit apartment complex proposed for Plumtree Road and Route 116, might not be built after all.

Kenneth W. Duda, 65, of 317 Montague Road, died unexpectedly on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009.

Thomas Glen Hollingsworth, of South Deerfield, Mass., age 79, died October 23, 2009 at the Cozy Corner Nursing Home in Sunderland, Massachusetts.

A U.S. Magistrate ruled Thursday that a strip search policy at the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction in Greenfield is unconstitutional.

Deborah Snow and Barbara White, who operate the Blue Heron Restaurant in Sunderland, are planning a "scary good time" this Halloween.

Tom Ricardi, bottom right, releases a 14-pound female bald eagle that he raised from an egg laid by a pair of bald eagles in April that he cares for at his raptor rehabilitation center in Conway.

George M. Hubbard, 80, of 303 Chapman St., died unexpectedly Saturday evening at Baystate Franklin Medical Center.

Jacqueline and Robert Gaines have created a maze in the shape of a cow on their dairy farm in Bernarston.

Theodore ''Teddy'' S. Liguz, 74, of 9 Conway St., died Tuesday evening in Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield.

Route 116 through Sunderland is known as a fast and busy road. Two more pedestrians have been injured in a spot where others have been hurt and even killed.