A Look Back, Feb. 26

50 Years Ago

■Security has been beefed up to protect Smith College student Yolanda D. King, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader. A college spokesman said the extra security is being taken in the wake of the kidnappings of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst and Atlanta Constitution Editor Reg Murphy.

■Over 3,000 gallons of oil were lost Wednesday in a spill at the Amherst Regional Junior High School. Charles Stuart, maintenance supervisor of the Amherst Public Schools, said that a plug in the line going from one fuel storage tank to another seemed to have been the cause of the overflow.

25 Years Ago

■Saying she has accomplished 75 to 80 percent of what she set out to do over the past seven years, Mayor Mary L. Ford announced in an emotional press conference Friday afternoon that she will not seek a fifth term as mayor. Struggling to hold back tears for much of her 20-minute speech, Ford said, “This feels like the right time to move on to new challenges.”

■Kitchen Sink Press, a 30-year-old award winning comic book publisher based in Northampton since 1993, has ceased to publish — a victim both of corporate decisions that led to major financial reversals and a steep continuing downturn in comic book sales nationwide.

10 Years Ago

■Northampton school officials want to sit out a planned test run next month of a new exam the state is eyeing to replace the statewide MCAS, citing demands on administrative time and other “hardships.” In a Feb. 21 letter to the state, interim Superintendent Regina Nash requests that Northampton be allowed to withdraw from tryouts of the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) tests in English and math.

■Every winter, Easthampton’s Department of Public Works gets about two dozen requests from drivers who want to be reimbursed for the cost of flat tires or bent rims caused by potholes. The answer is almost always no. But the city will definitely have to foot the bill for five blown tires caused by potholes this weekend, because the tires belonged to four city police cruisers.