A Look Back, April 25

50 Years Ago

Martha R. Fowlkes, a city resident and a graduate student in sociology at the University of Massachusetts, has been awarded one of 25 Woodrow Wilson Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships in Women’s Studies for 1975-76. She will use the fellowship to work on her Ph.D. dissertation at UMass.

As hundreds of spectators watched, the Northampton Trade and Home Show got off to a flying start yesterday when a New York City daredevil successfully leaped from the five-story McCallum’s department store building. Accompanied by “oohs” and “aahs” from the crowd assembled in the Armory Street parking lot, A. J. Bakunas made three such swan dives from atop the building into a huge air-filled bag.

25 Years Ago

A group of ten House members, including Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, said they will seek rule changes that would prevent a repeat of the drinking and revelry that allegedly occurred in the waning hours of the House budgetary process. “There’s widespread agreement that the budget process and the legislative process is broken,” Story said.

Kenneth S. Pease Jr., 66, former owner-operator of Pease Funeral Service Inc. of Northampton and Westfield, died April 23 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. He was remembered today as a model representative of his profession and as a very private person with, paradoxically perhaps, a profound gift for friendship.

10 Years Ago

On Thursday and Friday, a crane will remove the giant granite blocks that make up the Hampshire County Courthouse front steps as part of the first phase of the multi-million dollar renovation project. The steps have been sinking into the ground and are becoming uneven. The stones have been numbered and when a concrete footing is poured, they will be returned to their usual spots.

The lone proposal for taking over operation of the Shea Theater in Turners Falls envisions a blend of Pioneer Valley arts promoters and Turners Falls boosters to bolster art and culture in Franklin County. Radio personality Christopher “Monte” Belmonte, who works in Northampton and lives in Montague, has pulled together the current proposal to replace the nonprofit that has for the past decade booked performances at the Shea on Avenue A.