Belchertown

Voters in Belchertown, Massachusetts, packed the local high school over the weekend for the annual town meeting. On the agenda was a budget that would stave off drastic cuts at the school district.

Throughout western Massachusetts, communities are grappling with big potential cuts to school district staffing. It’s prompting lawmakers and students to call for the state to step up – and revisit one of its funding formulas.

For weeks, industrial boilers and evaporators have been pumping full steam ahead as maple syrup season in western Massachusetts continues. It's a sweet enterprise that one family in Belchertown has been at for 50 years now.

As apple picking season continues across the Northeast, one researcher is looking for more than a crisp taste. WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief James Paleologopoulos reports the red, green and gold fruits of labor tend to thrive in the Bay State.

A bridge spanning the Swift River in western Massachusetts now bears the name of a local man who was killed while serving in Iraq.