Youth for the Future: Sharaya Keele

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Volunteer coach Sharaya Keele is pursuing her basketball dreams while helping to teach others who may have the same goal.

Keele is a 23-year-old recent college graduate from Alberta Magnus College, where she got her Bachelor of Science in sports management and was on the basketball team.

During her time at the New Haven, Conn., college, she was president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee and worked as an academic coach. She also received the Female Student Athlete Outstanding Involvement Award.

She is now studying at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and is the first-ever graduate assistant coach in the athletic department. Her dream has always been to do something in sports, falling in love with basketball when she played for Hoosac Valley High. School

"I just knew that I wanted to be in sports my whole life. I started reffing when I was 15 years old, I think. So that's where I really like got introduced to the sports job area. And ever since then, I've been coaching at a bunch of different places all the time. I used to coach soccer, now I mostly just coach basketball."

Keele is a volunteer coach for the Berkshire Mountaineers and the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition Summer League, and does one-on-one coaching as well. She is working hard to pursue her dream of becoming a coach while helping to teach young minds.

"I like volunteering at this level because all of them are pretty new to basketball, so it's really about teaching, and you get to really put in practice how to teach again," she said. "So you're not at the college level; you're not really teaching the skills. They know the skills. You're just kind of doing the strategy.

"So I like coaching from all different aspects, and this is really ground one. You get to teach all the basics and the fundamentals, and you get to just see everybody grow. So when you see them finally get a skill or something, it's just super fun to see that growth firsthand."

With many of her volunteer positions and her achievements towards her future dream, has earned her the iBerkshires.com Youth for the Future designation. 

Youth for the Future is a 12-month series that honors young individuals who are making an impact on their community. This year's sponsor is Patriot Car Wash. Nominate a youth here. 

Keele has been coaching for NBCC for about five years and likes to help the young kids learn more than just basketball.

"It's really cool to see them grow up and get better and progress in their skills. So I think the main impact is not only basketball skills though, but how to be a good person. Like we don't beat up on people," she said. "I try and teach those basic skills of responsibility, like being here on time, have your shoes, have your water, and then just being a good person, helping people up and doing all those things that you can do just to be a good teammate, to be a good sport."

Dusty Columbus, 10, said he likes being on Keele's team.

"I like it because my teammates they're just super supportive, and they pick me up when I'm down."

He said Keele helps to make him and his teammates better.

"She does a lot of training with us to make us be better, and she does a lot of instructional stuff, like practicing, like easy stuff, and it's like we don't have to do any running at least like at the end of practice, so that's good. So, and it's like she's like yeah, like I said, super supportive and stuff," Dusty said.

Mercy Smith, 13, said being on the team has made her really happy.

"Where I live, I don't have a lot of sports, and I can't really play anything. So I'm really glad to be on this team and finally get to play a sport that I really love," she said.

Keele has been an inspiring coach who helps out, Mercy said, and she's grateful to be on the team and be coached by Keele.

"I like her being my coach because she's really been there, and she's just helped the whole team a lot, and she's helped me how to do crossovers. She's helped me do a lot of things," she said.

As for Keele, she said she wants to be in this role as long as she can. 

"I always plan on volunteering and helping out where I can because I just love basketball and I love being around it. So anywhere that I can be involved in basketball, I plan on being there," she said. "And then once I graduate from MCLA, I hope to coach again at the college level, hopefully as a full-time assistant, and then be a head coach somewhere. So basketball is really my end goal."

New Eagle Street Shop Has the Perfect Toppers

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
11:14AM / Saturday, August 01, 2026

Tip Top Hats sells Patricia Welch's handmade designs and more commercial products at lower prices. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has a millinery for the first time in more than 40 years. 

Patricia Welch, who has more than 60 years of hatmaking experience, recently opened Tip Top Hats at 16 Eagle St.

Welch said she has always been fascinated by hats and has seen many fashion trends. She's particularly interested in the mod movement.

"It's just something that I have a facility for and have been doing for so long, it's kind of second nature," she said. "It's over 60 years since I’ve been making hats, not all the time, but on and off for a long, long time. So I had a lot of life experience to draw from. I've seen many, many fashions come and go. Being a child of the '60s, I was heavily influenced by the mod movement, fashion movement, and it has stuck with me all these years."

Welch previously owned a shop in Gloucester before moving to New York in the late 1990s. Her work has been featured in juried shows and she's done design consulting.

While she worked in engineering and exhibiting designs, she always made her hats. It all started when she was 13 years old and had to solve a problem.

"I used to go riding on motorcycles with no hat on, no helmet, and your hair would get terribly knotted up," Welch said. "So the first time I made a hat, it was kind of a little bonnet of cotton that just tied under my chin, and it was just to keep my hair from getting tied in knots by the wind."

She came across the "for rent" sign on storefront in May and made a decision she would like to occupy it. She opened on July 1 during First Friday.  She said it was a great way for her to get out of retirement.

"Kind of impulsive, but you know I'm not young, and tired of being retired, basically," Welch said. "So this is a wonderful, fun experience, and I think it'll bring more to Eagle Street."

Millinery shops were a mainstay of women's and men's fashion well into the 1960s. At one time, North Adams had three or four independent millinery shops plus departments in some of its stores, like Roberts Co. and the Boston Store.

They began closing down in the 1960s because of owners' retirements or deaths, dislocation because of urban renewal, and changing fashions. The last ones were the Style Shoppe and Hollywood Millinery (then Hollywood Fashions) in the early 1980s. 

Welch has hats made from straw, fake fur, wool, leather, and more. Her designs can take hours to complete.

"I start by having an idea in mind for the style that I want to work on, and then I'll pull from my textiles and make a selection that would all work nicely together, so that I can I can make a particular style using various textiles from the same group, so it becomes a collection rather than just a random bunch of hats," she said.

She wants to have something for everyone, and since her one-of-a-kind hats can be pricey, she has  commercially hats that are moderately priced.

"Typically in finishing a hat, there's handwork, which is why they become more expensive. Because some hats I spend well, literally hours on," she said.