50 Years Ago

• Efforts in support of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s recently announced $225 million leadership campaign will be coordinated in Massachusetts by Edith E. Nelson, formerly of Williamsburg, and newly-appointed New England district officer for the campaign. An alumna of the Williston-Northampton School and Elmira College, Miss Nelson has spent her career in the financial field.
• About 100 Smith College students are eating vegetarian meals during January as part of a plan worked out by the college’s food service in cooperation with a group of Smith students. The results of the interterm and Lawrence House vegetarian experiments will determine the long-range plans of the Smith food service for vegetarian dining.

25 Years Ago

• With five finalists to choose from, University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger is expected to pick a chief executive officer for UMass Online by the end of the month. The selection will bring closer to reality Bulger’s promise of a system-wide online education initiative by next winter.
• The Rev. James E. Cronin, who served as pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Northampton for 20 years, died Tuesday at the age of 79. “He was a very priestly priest, a very spiritual man,” said Theresa Schmittlein, who was Cronin’s secretary at the church from his first day on the job, May 25, 1973.

10 Years Ago

• A folk singer who was a key organizer of the Green River Festival was remembered this weekend by friends and family as big-hearted, hard-working and a linchpin of the Valley music scene. Jeff Martell, 50, of Northampton died in a car accident in West Springfield while driving to a gig in New York.
• Displaying everything from shower curtains to Barbie dolls, the Northampton Senior Center is $806.29 closer to a shuttle service after its three-day “Just Because” sale, which ended Saturday. The center on Conz Street is hoping to buy two wheelchair-accessible vans and hire drivers to bring people to and from its programs.