Acronym for Pioneer Valley Performing Arts, PVPA is actually Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public High School. A middle school was added in 2004. The school is a gathering place for the young artists of the Pioneer Valley, including quite a few teens from Northampton and the Springfield area. The school has four main areas of concentration theatre, dance, music, and visual arts.
The school is currently located in Hadley, MA but is soon moving to South Hadley.

www.pvpa.org

Smith College, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, is the largest women's college in the United States. It is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college and one of the Seven Sisters. Smith is also a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four other Pioneer Valley institutions: Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Notable Facts:
Kurt Vonnegut and Sylva Plath were part of the faculty at Smith College.
Smith College is the first and only women's college in the United States to grant its own undergraduate degrees in engineering.
Smith has an endowment of over one billion dollars.

Notable alumnae:
Harriet Boyd-Hawes
Otelia Cromwell
Margaret Mitchell
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Julia McWilliams Child
Madeleine L'Engle
Betty Friedan
Nancy Reagan
Barbara Bush
Sylvia Plath
Gloria Steinem
Mary McPherson
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Tammy Baldwin

A small town with a 2 lane freeway, that has the traffic of a 3 or 4 lane freeway.

It used to have character, but the local governement tore down all the historical buildings to "modernize," which then made them neglect the downtown area which has now gone to ruin and is stricken by poverty.

The local government also does a horrible job with maintaining the local economy, by letting in large corporations which push out local business, and making it hard for letting local business to open.

Santa Maria High School's facilities are a joke. The classrooms are out-dated and the football field is hideous. Althought, it had many good programs (the best of which is the welding program) and has more 4-H funding then they can handle.

Pioneer Valley High School has some of the best facilities in the state, taking that they were given over 20 million in state funding, due to a bad write-up by a district member (not going to name names). They have quite a few fountains, a terf football field, rubber track, nice baseball fields, very up-to-date weight room and wonderful tennis facilities.

Local restaurants are wonderful, if you can find them. The large chain restaurants are all located near the freeway, while the wonderful places, such as: Shaw's, DW's American Bistro ...

The City of Clovis was named after its public spirited pioneer, Clovis M. Cole, a man who spent nearly all of his life in the vicinity. Clovis is the "Better part of Fresno" and has a wonderful school district. Located in the northeast quadrant of the Fresno-Clovis Metropolitan Area, Clovis is situated in the midst of the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley. Since its incorporation in 1912, Clovis has been the "Gateway to the Sierra."

A redneck farm town in western mass. Population : slightly over 3,000. The home of Smith Academy, the smallest public high school in the state. Known to residents of the Pioneer Valley as a great town to go to if you're looking for a good party in the woods, bonfires, big trucks, quads, guns, boats, beer, and underage sex. Many youngsters begin their steak of debauchery around age 12 or 13. Certain landmarks known to Hatfield residents include: The S-curves, The Park, Root country, Hatfield Pond, The river, The Orchard, Mama's, The Smithsonian, Horse Mountain, The Market aka Monty's, B's, Hatfield Pub, The Polish Club, The Bashin, The Boat Launch, The Power lines, The shallows, etc...

A city in the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts, known mostly for it's main road, Memorial Drive (aka "The Drive") and for the HuKeLau Polynesian restaurant.
You're from one side of the river or the other, and you go to CCHS or CHS which has a rivalry game every year for "The Sword".
Former home of the Kielbasa Festival and the Fairfield mall, new home to WalMart and Home Depot, among other stores.
Also home to Westover Air Reserve base, formerly Westover Air Force base.

The Holyoke Range, a relatively small mountain range in western Massachusetts, USA, which separates the Pioneer Valley from the Springfield metropolitan area.

This name reflects the juxtaposition of the areas to the north and south of the range. The relative wealth, educational level, smugness and quality of life of Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts to the north - and the urban decay, teen pregnancy, street violence, drug use, and poverty of Holyoke, Chicopee, and Springfield Massachusetts, a mere ten miles to the south.

A Tofu Curtain may exist in other areas, such as Princeton, New Jersey and New Haven, Connecticut (home to Princeton and Yale Universities, respectively). However, this is the most dramatic example of a physical barrier which approximates the socioeconomic divide.