Press

The Taconic and Pittsfield High School boys basketball teams are two of the biggest noisemakers as the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association released its second set of power ratings Tuesday morning.

PITTSFIELD — If these walls could talk, volunteer Laura Harbin-Waters thinks they’d have a lot to say.

Harbin-Waters stood alongside other volunteers at the Habitat for Humanity property at 58 Gordon St., white primer dripping from rollers and brushes as the crew was tasked with coating the second floor. The act, she said, was more than meets the eye. 

PITTSFIELD — The poems are there, inside these young Pittsfield authors. They just need coaxing.

That’s a given for leaders of the Fireside program, which since 2017 has helped elementary students blossom as writers, with support from The Mastheads, the humanities program based at Arrowhead, former home of writer Herman Melville. 

NORTH ADAMS — “Communion with life begins with the earth,” a blue poster declares to those who pass by MCLA’s Design Lab.

GREAT BARRINGTON — The image of a town native who broke ground in medicine, as well as for women and people of color, might end up on a U.S. stamp.

On weekends at Pine Manor College, Taverick “Tank” Roberson practiced in the basketball gym while his teammates and friends were out partying. Roberson, a New England Basketball Hall of Famer and one of the best high school basketball players in Pittsfield history, had a work ethic that separated him from the rest.

PITTSFIELD — On Thursday night, Cashey Young, 16, could hardly contain her nerves leading up to her first Kwanzaa performance.

Young had spent the week reflecting on the African-American holiday in preparation. “It’s great that there’s a holiday that celebrates everybody who’s Black. Uniting with Black people is really important for me, because alone we can’t accomplish what we can do together,” she said. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — In its inaugural year, the city’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has opened up the conversation about creating safe and equal spaces for all community members.

“I would say that almost a full year has gone very, very well, exceptionally well,” Chief Diversity Officer Michael Obasohan said about the work that has been done internally within the city departments and externally with other organizations.

PITTSFIELD — Michael J. Wynn is a trade association’s “chief of the year” for 2022.

The Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association announced on social media that Wynn, a nearly 30-year veteran of the Pittsfield Police Department, had been selected unanimously for an award that “recognizes the police chief that genuinely stood out that year.”

NORTH ADAMS — Give the Spartans an inch and you’re going to need a tape measure.

The Monument Mountain boys hit their stride in the middle of the third quarter and broke free of the Blue Devils, going on to win, 77-49, Monday night. 

Over the last decade, Boston Public Schools has sought to diversify its teaching staff with a teaching fellowship, a training pipeline to help paraprofessionals and substitutes become classroom teachers, and affinity groups for underrepresented teachers, all aimed at retaining staff of color.

What are we saying to our kids about race even when we don’t say anything? Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, explains how it is a false choice whether or not to teach your young child about race because either way, they’re picking up on your attitude about race. Kids notice when their mom only has White friends, or when their teacher treats certain students differently. Eventually they’ll see a pattern in how lighter-skinned people get to live richer, healthier lives than darker-skinned people. Kendi says to raise antiracist children, parents must lead by example and teach their kids that racial disparities exist because of bad rules, not bad people.

GREAT BARRINGTON — Blues guitarist Robert Cray, singer-songwriter Joan Osborne and classic rock duo Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams will take the stage at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center this spring.

Penniman tells us a story about race and the food system and how we can decolonize and re-indigenize our relationship to land and to food. She reminds us that the land we stand upon is stolen land and that the food system was built upon it with stolen labor. Today, the Black farming movement still faces racism and discrimination, but in spite of that, she says, “we’re trying to reclaim that inherent connection, that right to belong to the earth and to have agency in the food system.” In order to move toward Black agrarianism and toward new economies for Black and Brown people, repatriation and reparations need to take place. Penniman adds that we need to think seriously about our relationship to the earth, because we have the knowledge and means of indigenous and ancestral methods that can feed the planet without destroying it. She uses examples from Soul Fire Farm, which she co-founded in 2011, to show how it is helping to put an end to racism and injustice in the food system.

PITTSFIELD — Marching orders for the Generals this winter will come from a new source.

The Pittsfield High boys basketball program has been to three Western Massachusetts championship games this century, and Jerome Edgerton was a part of two of them during his playing days. Now, he’ll try to right the PHS ship from the sidelines as the program’s new head coach.

PITTSFIELD — For the formerly incarcerated, the first 72 hours of freedom can be as difficult as the sentence they’ve just finished.

This is the period when ex-cons are most likely to take the steps that lead them to re-offend, according to law enforcement authorities. They have two choices: Return to the environment that got them into trouble in the first place, or choose an alternative path that allows them to become a productive member of society. 

For Ciany Conyers, the long journey from Valentine Road in Pittsfield to Hoosick and Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., has paid off.

Conyers, who helped Taconic win a Western Massachusetts Division II championship in 2020, signed her National Letter of Intent back on Nov. 10, to play Division I basketball at Siena College, over in Loudonville, N.Y. 

SPRINGFIELD — It was a long wait, the doors opened at 6 o’clock at the MassMutual Center, amateur fights started at seven and the pro bouts began at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Plus the Massachusetts State Light Heavyweight Title Fight was the penultimate match, which began at 10:15 p.m. and lasted the full eight scheduled rounds.

LENOX — Castle of our Skins, a Boston-based Black arts institution dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music, will make its first appearance at the Tanglewood Learning Institute 3 p.m. Nov. 27 at the Linde Center for Music and Learning.