North Adams Public Schools Announce Postgraduate Scholarship Opportunities for Drury High Graduates

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — North Adams Public Schools is offering three postgraduate scholarship funds for college students who graduated from Drury High School and are currently enrolled in a four-year college.

The application deadline for all scholarships is June 1st. Applicants require a Google account to apply online and submit their transcript electronically.

The available scholarships are:

• The Charles & Olivina Perron Memorial Scholarship: Open to any college student attending a four-year college.
• The Mortimer P. Howard Memorial Scholarship: Open to college students entering their junior or senior year of college.
• The H.H. Gadsby Memorial Scholarship: Open to any college student attending a four-year college.

Applications are now being accepted and must be submitted by June 1st through the following link: POSTGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS

North Adams Updated on Schools, Council President Honored With 'Distinction'

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
12:31PM / Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Superintendent Timothy Callahan gives a presentation on the school system at Tuesday's City Council meeting. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council got an update on what's up in the school system and its president was inducted into the mayor's Women's Leadership Hall of Fame.

 

Mayor Jennifer Macksey, as the city's first woman mayor, established the Hall of Fame in 2022, during March, Women's History Month, to recognize local women who have had a positive impact on the city. Past inductees have included the council's first woman president Fran Buckley, Gov. Jane Swift and boxing pioneer Gail Grandchamp. 

 

She described President Ashley Shade as a colleague and a friend and a former student. 

 

"Ashley is known not just for her leadership, but for her compassion, her ability to listen, to understand and to stand up for those whose voices are often gone unheard," the mayor said. "She has been a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ plus community and marginalized communities at both the local and national level here in North Adams."

 

Elected in 2021, Shade is the first openly transgender person to hold the role of council president in Massachusetts. She also leads the first-ever woman majority council in the city's history. 

 

The McCann Technical School graduate also has served on boards and commissions, "always working to make our city more inclusive, equitable and welcoming," said the mayor. "Ashley not leads not only with strength, but with a heart, and our community is a much stronger place because of it."

 

Shade, wearing her signature pink suit, was presented with a plaque from the mayor designating her a "woman of distinction."