A Look Back, March 20

50 Years Ago

■A new store opened on Main Street this week, staffed by present or former members of the incentive community program at Northampton State Hospital and carrying products made by state hospital patients. “New Horizons” is located at 146 Main St., formerly the site of the Music Barn.

■Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., will be the honored guest at the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce Spring Salute Breakfast April 1 at 8 a.m. at the Colonial Hilton Inn. Sen. Kennedy will speak on the outlook for the economy, as he sees it from Washington, and on the energy crisis.

25 Years Ago

■The University of Massachusetts is expanding its use of technology that allows professors and students to interact through email and chat rooms. Online degree programs are rapidly becoming part of the higher education landscape.

■A bakery strike in Maine has hit home for bun-loving students in Northampton’s schools. Most won’t even catch a glimpse of today’s promised hamburger or Friday’s advertised fishwich. The last bread in school storehouses went out with last Thursday’s steak sandwiches. The school system’s supplier has warned of a protracted bread shortage.

10 Years Ago

■Ward 3 City Councilor Ryan O’Donnell is introducing a measure at Thursday’s City Council meeting that would offer city workers the same earned sick-time benefits voters across the state approved in a statewide referendum vote last year. The state law approved last November exempts municipalities from its provisions unless they specifically vote to accept the law.

■Patrick Donnelly, who lives in South Deerfield and teaches poetry at Smith College, has been appointed Northampton’s newest poet laureate by the city’s Arts Council. He’s the seventh artist to hold the position, which was created in the early 2000s and comes with a $2,000 stipend.