CLINTON - Billboards, a homily and a car crash jump-started some efforts by men to support women and children.

From ministering in Alaska and with the fur traders in the Pacific Northwest to southern Africa, from Japan to Latin America and the Amazon rain forest, and straight up through the heart of Europe, we saw global history unfold around us. We did more than survive, we thrived.

“Our liturgy this afternoon is the first in a series of events celebrating the arrival of the Sisters of Notre Dame in the Archdiocese of Boston 175 years ago, in 1849, and their subsequent journey ‘west’ here to Worcester,” Sister Patricia O’Brien, a member of the United States East-West Province’s leadership team, said in a welcome.

Robert F. Foley met with returning players after school on Tuesday to inform them that he had decided to retire after coaching high school basketball for 61 years, including the last 44 at St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury.

St. Bernadette School is dealing with financial difficulties caused by a drop in enrollment, but Father Ronald G. Falco, pastor at St. Bernadette Parish, remains optimistic about the future of the school.