■Susan Teece, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Teece of Southampton, was the winner of the annual American Legion Oratorical Contest held Friday at Easthampton High School. Miss Teece is now eligible to compete in the District Contest which will be held in March.
■Hampshire County as we know it may be on its way out. Legislation filed for consideration by the Legislature this year would merge most of Hampshire County with Franklin County with the county seat in Greenfield. The word is out at the State House that some form of change in county government is going through this year, Rep. John W. Olver, D-Amherst, said.
■Acting more like a stand-up comedian than a university president, William M. Bulger kept a luncheon of business leaders and politicians laughing for 20 minutes yesterday. Though many people have bene asking him, Bulger said he is not ready to articulate his vision for the five-campus University of Massachusetts system.
■Easthampton resident Eileen Rivest was named Cooley Dickinson Hospital “Employee of the Year” for 1995. Rivest, 48, is an oncology nurse in the radiation therapy department, a position she has had since 1993.
■Social Security will post nearly $600 billion in deficits over the next decade as the economy struggles to recover and millions of baby boomers stand at the brink of retirement, according to new congressional projections. The outlook has grown bleaker as the nation struggles to recover from its worst economic crisis since Social Security was enacted during the Great Depression.
■Robert Seydel, a Hampshire College professor of photography, died suddenly Thursday as he was preparing to teach a class, school officials announced. He was 50. Students, faculty and staff gathered Thursday afternoon at the Jerome Libeling Center for Film, Photography and Video to grieve over Seydel’s sudden passing.