■The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has amended its 1970 commencement ceremonies to include “appropriate protest” over the war and other issues of the national student strike. The changes were agreed on by UMass administrators and senior class representatives after a vote by seniors.
■Mrs. Julie Nixon Eisenhower left Northampton yesterday after a four-year stay while she attended Smith College. She expressed her gratitude to the city and its residents for kindnesses to her, her husband and her father, President Richard M. Nixon.
■State Rep. Carmen H. Buell will resign her seat in the House of Representatives in July and move to Chapel Hill, N.C., where her husband, Michael K. Hooker, has taken the job as chancellor of the University of North Carolina.
■Skateboarders today will show off their skills in Pulaski Park and they hope to debunk negative stereotypes about their sport. They will skate as part of the Council on Aging’s “Party in the Park” between noon and 2 p.m.
■Frank Tudryn, longtime pillar of Northampton High School, died Wednesday morning at a hospital in Naples, Florida, following a yearlong battle with cancer. From 1971 to 2000 Tudryn worked at Northampton High as a social studies teacher, assistant principal and interim principal. He coached the track and field team and guided the football team for 29 years.
■Eleven of Northampton’s dozen public elevators are out of compliance with annual state inspections, including an elevator in the downtown parking garage that hasn’t been checked since 2008. Across the region, other elevators are also operating with lapsed certificates, due to state inaction.