25 Years Ago: The pomp and circumstance of graduation mingled with gusts of wind and distant rolls of thunder as the Class of 1987 became a part of the history of Cromwell High School at the school’s 29th commencement.
25 Years Ago: U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd cautioned the graduating class at Portland High School to take the constitution for granted.

25 Years Ago: Marsha McDonough, director of Vinal Regional Vocational Technical School, resigned her post in Middletown, effective that August, for professional and personal reasons.

25 Years Ago: One hundred and twenty Vinal Technical School students received their high school diplomas, while a few miles to the east, at Middletown High School, Wanda L. Gaskins nervously waited for her row to be called so that she could receive that long-coveted diploma.

25 Years Ago: More than 80 students took part in the commencement exercises at Lake Grove School in Durham. Fifteen of them actually left the school that summer.

25 Years Ago: Clinton Board of Education made the final deletions from it 1987-88 budget.

25 Years Ago: Nearly 400 hundred students and teachers sat on desks, chairs and floor at the Coginchaug High School Library to listen to four guest speakers talk about the Vietnam War. History teacher Pauline Dyson organized the daylong event.

25 Years Ago: The first day of school in September was unlike any other in many years for Ralph and Jacquelyn Barrett, for they were observers rather than active participants in the drama of a new school year starting. The couple, who combined had 70 years in school system, retired.

25 Years Ago: Clinton Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph J. Cirasuolo estimated that it would cost between $12.4 and $18.4 million to meet the town’s school building needs.

25 Years Ago: Although the Deep River Veterans Memorial Park Committee’s plans to expand the memorial were nixed by the Planning and Zoning Commission, it hoped a town meeting would approve the project.

25 Years Ago: Questions about landscaping and pedestrian safety were asked at a public hearing in Clinton on the town’s plans to build a new fire station at the intersection of Glenwood and Hurd Bridge roads.

25 Years Ago: After more than a year of organizing, The Chester Land Trust was ready to take flight.

25 Years Ago: One year after a fire destroyed the Sibley Co. building on Bridge Street in Haddam, an identical new building constructed on the site was ready for lease.

25 Years Ago: U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd was selected by the Portland High School Class of 1987 to be the keynote speaker at their commencement.

25 Years Ago: Central School in Portland was close to signing a new lease on life as a regional special education facility.

25 Years Ago: The merits of Peter Van Jeune’s plea to alter what he considered a hazardous bus route was the subject of a four-hour public hearing in Chester.

25 Years Ago: The Killingworth Platt Nature Center planned a busy schedule of programs as it began its 11th year of sponsoring programs for children and adults.

25 Years Ago: An anonymous letter raised enough ire from Old Saybrook First Selectwoman Barbara J. Maynard that she decided to respond publicly, something she normally did not do with unsigned complaints. The letter alleged that the director of the Parks and Recreation Department was seen coaching the track team at the high school.

25 Years Ago: The production "Godspell" was put on at the Portland High School, undertaken by senior Luke Gilmette as his senior project in the gifted and talented program.

25 Years Ago: A Valley Regional High School senior named the three towns in Regional School District 4, two past administrators and two students in a lawsuit filed in Middlesex Superior Court. The suit alleged that Heather German, of Chester, suffered an eye injury the end of her sophomore year, after being struck with a double metal staple.

25 Years Ago: The open space task force worked with the Clinton Board of Education to find tracts of land in town which could not be suitable sites for a new school.

25 Years Ago: For the third time in two months, the Republican majority on the Old Saybrook Board of Selectmen overlooked Democrat William R. Gesick by appointing a Republican to a school board vacancy, which once again raised the dust on a political squabble that could potentially last until Election Day.