HooRWA to Host Annual Meeting and Talk on Forest Conservation

08:23AM / Wednesday, February 05, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Hoosic River Watershed Association (HooRWA) will hold its annual meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 7 p.m. at Williams College's Wege Auditorium.

The event, sponsored by the Williams College Environmental Studies Program and the Zilkha Center for the Environment, will include a review of HooRWA's 2024 activities and board elections.

Following the meeting, at 7:15 p.m., Vermont forester and author Ethan Tapper will deliver a talk titled "What Does It Mean to Love a Forest?" Drawing from his bestselling book, "How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World," Tapper will discuss how humans can play an active role in healing ecosystems. His presentation will explore the challenges of environmental stewardship and the need for pragmatic conservation efforts. A Q&A session will follow.

The event is free and open to the public.

Wege Auditorium is on the ground floor of the Williams College Chemistry building in the Unified Science Center and is most easily accessed by entering the Morley Scientific Laboratory through the atrium, going up the ramp or the stairs. turning right, and going straight along the corridor almost to the end. Wege Auditorium is TCL Room 123, on the right just before the end of that corridor.

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Coach John T. Allen Remembered for More than Just Wins

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
04:35PM / Wednesday, October 14, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — John Agostini says his high school football coach was the most important influence in his life except for Agostini's own parents.

And, like a good parent, John T. Allen knew how to push the right buttons.

For Agostini, that moment came not long after Allen made the Mount Greylock Regional School eighth-grader feel special by inviting him to be the only member of his class to play on the varsity team.

"After football season had ended, I encountered a different John Allen, an angry John Allen," Agostini recalled on Wednesday morning. "I was in the very small weight room we had at Greylock at that time. I vividly remember John Allen entered the weight room. He had fire in his eyes. And, worse yet, he had rolled up papers in his hands.

"The papers were a list of people who were on the honor roll. While waving those papers at me as if they were a tomahawk, he informed me that my sister's name was on that list. My name was not. Coach then proceeded to go up one side of me and down the other without giving me a chance to respond. He then stopped and, in a much calmer voice, he said something that hurt me more than anything else. He told me he was, 'disappointed,' in me. Coach Allen was not somebody I wanted to disappoint.

"At that moment, John Allen absolutely ruined my day. But looking back after all these years, I understand something: He may have ruined my day, but, in a very real sense, he gave me my life."

Agostini, a 1971 Mount Greylock graduate who served more than 20 years as a Superior Court judge, delivered the eulogy for Allen, who coached football at Mount Greylock for 39 years.

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