A Look Back: Aug. 22

50 Years Ago

■Frederick L. Cusick has joined the Gazette staff as police and court reporter. The son of Fred Cusick, Voice of the Boston Bruins, Cusick is an avid basketball fan and bowler. At one time he held the Bowdoin College track record in the half mile.

■In a little publicized meeting Monday night, the Northampton Redevelopment Authority indicated it may drastically scale down both the scope and cost of the downtown urban renewal project for the city. The new proposal would reduce the cost of the project from an estimated high of $5 million to $1.5 million and eliminate the original plan’s proposed residential redevelopment.

25 Years Ago

■Production workers at the Minute Maid Co. Inc. plant in Northampton voted Thursday against forming a union in a close vote that could be retaken, if a federal board upholds a union claim. Workers voted 30-24 against affiliating with Local 1459 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

■Northampton City Councilors William Dwight and Frances Volkmann say that if the Board of Health were to outlaw smoking in bars, the effect would be complemented by a similar smoking ban in Amherst. A ban on bar smoking in Northampton, considered to be the hub of nighttime entertainment in Hampshire County, would go a long way toward starting a regional bar smoking ban, according to both councilors.

10 Years Ago

■When school starts next month, Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School will have a varsity football team for the first time in its 105-year history. The new 45-member Vikings team will be coached by vocational school Superintendent Jeffrey R. Peterson.

■About 60 protesters from children to seniors gathered at the corner of Spring and Meadow streets in Florence Tuesday, not far from new playing fields where contractors planned to spray an herbicide this week. They were protesting the planned application of Roundup to the fields, which are surrounded by organic farmland.

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