RUMFORD – “Everybody’s going to Rumford today,” the car rental clerk observed to my cousins, just arrived in Portland and headed for a visit with us.

Well, maybe not everybody was headed to Rumford on a recent Saturday. Cordial clerks like to make us feel part of a movement, not a moment. Still, the sense of being one of many bent on a mission was in the air at The Madison Resort Inn on Route 2 in Rumford Center when the Rumford High School Class of 1985 gathered to celebrate its 25th reunion on Sept. 17.

About half the reunion guests live and work in the River Valley, and most of the others live in Maine. A few made a longer journey. David Hopkins came from Washington state to attend his first reunion, and Frank Demascio headed here from Virginia for his first ’85 reunion.

Laurie (Gaul) and Mark (’82) McKenna live about three miles from The Madison. “It would be pretty hard to say we couldn’t make it,” Laurie said.

Keeping in touch

More than 90 40-somethings had a great time. Ellen Zinck Worthing, now of Scarborough, organized her class’s reunion. “It’s important to keep in touch with the people you grew up with,” she said.

She was determined to do her best.

From all accounts, the food was good and the band was great. Everyone wore a nametag with his or her high-school yearbook picture on it. (“Do I have to wear this?” “Yes you do.”)

And there were tons of balloons. Looking ahead to the 30th reunion, Ellen, with Laurie Nokes and Tom Hines, both of Peru, put together a raffle: $10 “for an arm’s length” of raffle tickets – for baskets of fine chocolate, a margarita set – netted $300. For Laurie McKenna, the chance to catch up with old friends was tops.

Laurie and Kathy Perkins Gagnon were best friends all through school, who went out to Colorado together after graduation. They both live in Rumford, but with school-age children and work, there isn’t much time to get together. Lots of other classmates, Laurie said, live in town, but they only see one another in passing.

At their 25th, old friends “got to sit down and really talk,” she said.

Most of the conversation, Ellen said, was about the past, about all the times they’d shared. Many remembered their good friend Mike Milligan, who died of cancer two years ago. They also talked about changes here and how those changes feel. Things like the merger of the Rumford and Mexico high schools in 1989.

Remembering a rivalry

“It’s really strange to us. … Mexico and Rumford were such rivals! We like to come back to Rumford,” Ellen said. She and her husband and son ski Black Mountain with sister Sue and Brad Adley and their kids. “What a wonderful change” at the mountain, she said. “I hope things continue.”

Everyone loved the band, Ellen said. The Hooligans have been together for decades. “I played with those guys over 20 ago,” Tom Hines said.

Today, the Hooligans, all Rumford High graduates, include three Steele brothers, Mark (’78), Ken (’79), Wayne (’88), and two Arsenaults, Ralph and Mike. The music was a mix of the new and the old, but the songs of their high school days meant the most, such as the megahits “Smoke on the Water” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”

It’s obvious the class reunion was Some Kinda Wonderful.

Linda Farr Macgregor lives with her husband, Jim, in Rumford. She can be reached at [email protected]