Amherst Ma

What are we doing out here? Democracy works only if voters are well-informed, engaged, and committed to getting to the polls.

Although Emily Dickinson is now considered one of America’s greatest poets, during her lifetime she was better known for her horticultural skills, as Dickinson scholar Judith Farr has observed. From a young age Dickinson was fascinated by the natural world. She enjoyed helping her mother in the gardens that she kept both at the Dickinson Homestead and the house the Dickinson family lived in for several years on North Pleasant Street where Ren’s Mobil Station now stands. During her year at Mary Lyon’s Female Seminary (1847-48), now Mount Holyoke College, she studied botany and made an extensive herbarium, a collection of pressed flowers and plants from the local area, that eventually contained more than 400 specimens. A family friend is said to have commented, “Emily had an uncanny knack of making even the frailest growing things flourish.”

AMHERST — The Town Council is not ready to endorse proposals brought forward last fall to build a $30 million fire station for South Amherst at the former Hickory Ridge golf course, and to have new Department of Public Works buildings constructed at multiple sites for a cost of $35 million.

AMHERST — Up to 24 staff positions would be eliminated at the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, including four teachers and three paraprofessionals at both the middle and high schools, based on a possible deficit of $1 million or more in the schools’ $37.7 million fiscal year 2026 budget.

Recently I read an article about the country’s most popular dog toy — Lamb Chop. According to the article in The New York Times, dog owners “throw Lamb Chop-themed parties and photo shoots.” They find Lamb Chop costumes for Halloween, along with other extravagances.

AMHERST — A dozen administrators in the Amherst and Amherst-Pelham Regional schools are accusing Superintendent E. Xiomara Herman of threats of physical harm, creating a hostile work environment and allowing sexual and workplace harassment since she took the helm of the district last July.

AMHERST — A 30-year member of the Amherst police force and two firefighters with extensive experience are taking on new leadership roles at the town’s public safety departments.

The next school year will be the last for Fort River Elementary School in Amherst, which is being replaced with a new school on the site. STAFF FILE PHOTO

Polly Longsworth, who survives her husband, Charles, has written extensively about Emily Dickinson and helped to create the Emily Dickinson Museum. She is also a founding trustee of The Common School in Amherst and former president of the Amherst Historical Society. FILE PHOTO

AMHERST — Restricting the sale of oral nicotine pouches to adults-only tobacco stores, increasing the minimum price of cigars to be consistent with state regulations, and not allowing a tobacco retailer to move within 1,000 feet of an existing business selling tobacco are among changes being considered for the town’s rules related to sale of tobacco and vape products.