■Betsy Stone of South Street has been appointed coordinator of the Franklin County office of the Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts. A former VISTA community worker in Western Massachusetts, Ms. Stone worked for several months with the Family Planning Council as a volunteer before becoming county coordinator.
■A Dixieland band known as Pzazz will perform in downtown Northampton Saturday following the Bicentennial walking tour of the downtown area. The band is sponsored by the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce.
■Mary L. Ford, the city’s former mayor, will be gainfully employed as of next month at a research and advocacy organization focusing on children’s hours away from school. She has accepted the position of director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time, a project of the Center for Research on Women, which is part of the Wellesley Centers for Women, at Wellesley College.
■Mayor Clare Higgins’ first city budget, which tallies at $55.1 million, would add a position of economic development coordinator, allocate $18,000 for seasonal public works laborers, and have the city manage the municipal parking garage, rather than an outside contractor.
■More than five years after buying the former Bean and Allard farms in Florence with plans for a new recreation complex, the city officially christened a section of the Florence Recreation Fields during the weekend by hosting games on its two baseball diamonds. Mayor David J. Narkewicz threw out the ceremonial first pitch Friday as the first Northampton Little League game was played on the 50-foot, intermediate diamond.
■Local Catholics fighting to reopen a landmark city church they feel was wrongly closed five years ago are not prepared to give up, despite news Wednesday that the Vatican’s highest court upheld the decision to close the St. Mary’s Church on Elm Street.