Hoosac Valley High School John and Abigail Adams Scholarship Award Winners

10:49AM / Monday, November 03, 2025Print Story | Email Story

CHESHIRE, Mass. — Hoosac Valley High School announced the 2025-2026 John and Abigail Adams Scholarship Award recipients.

Vanessa Biddy, Ella Bissaillon, Qwanell Bradley, Daniel Cernik, Kylie Clark, Virginia Field, Nathan Lapinski, Ava Mclear, Levi Miller, Logan O'Connell, Samuel Pantano, Noah Rehill, Dylan Rohlfs, Anna Thurston, Alexis Warner.

The John and Abigail Adams Scholarship is a merit-based program that provides a credit toward tuition for up to eight semesters of undergraduate education at a Massachusetts state college or university. For this scholarship, merit is based on student scores on the 10th grade Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test.

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Adams Fire District Meeting Approves Full-Time Paid Chief

Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
06:55PM / Thursday, February 19, 2026

ADAMS, Mass. — A special meeting of the Fire District overwhelmingly passed making the fire chief and clerk/treasurer appointed positions on Thursday evening.

More than 50 registered voters experienced déjà vu as they rehashed the requests to make the fire engineer and clerk/treasurer positions appointed during a meeting that lasted half and hour.

These votes will have to be confirmed at a future election.

In previous district meetings, changing the fire chief position to a paid, full-time, appointed role was controversial. Article 2 passed with a large majority in favor at the meeting, as it has in the past. However, it's failed narrowly on ballot votes.

Voter Catherine Foster said this change is long overdue, especially now that current Fire Chief John Pansecchi has announced his retirement effective May, after nine years as chief and 40 years with the department.

Following questions from voters, it was explained that the pay scale for the 40-hour position will be based on qualifications and will range between $75,000 to $111,000, not including benefits.

Based on benefits for other town employees, benefits will cost an additional of about $40,000 to $50,000.

Through the stipend, Pansecchi is getting paid roughly $30,000.

Over the past five years, the position's responsibilities and hours have increased significantly, making it nearly a full-time role on top of his existing full-time job.

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