■Wrecking crews have begun demolishing the Kellogg East and West Elementary schools on Kellogg Avenue in Amherst. The schools are coming down to make way for the Center School Complex, a major redevelopment project.
■The Gladys Shop a women’s apparel store at 239 Main St., has closed its door for good after 30 years. The store is the sixth to close in the downtown area in the past month and a half. Mrs. Gladys McNeish, proprietor of the store, said she is retiring to spend more time with her husband, John, who retired three years ago from his job as a state police officer.
■A Northampton native is returning to the city to become administrator of the Hampshire County Long Term Care Facility. Thomas B. Hanley has been named to the post left vacant when William Filarey resigned last March. He starts in September.
■The chief executive officer of VNA and Hospice Alliance, a new agency formed by merging two visiting nurse associations and Hospice of Hampshire County, will begin work in September. Ira Bates, who heads a private consulting firm in Falls Church, Va., was named to the post in July following a national search that began in November.
■In a flurry of rhinestones and leather, hundreds of horsemen and women from around the Northeast descended on the Three County Fairgrounds this week, making it their home for the annual six-day New England Morgan Horse Show. The fairgrounds never looked so glamorous.
■Department of Public Works employees have taken down the paint brush mural titled “Dream” on the railroad bridge in Northampton. The work by Leland Johnston of Northampton has stood as a gateway to the downtown since 1991. It is making way for a new work titled “Water Music” by Holyoke artist David Teeple.