Eslie Barbee, 77, will never forget the time her classmate at what is now Franklin Middle School learned a lesson about badgering billy goats.

The students were buying candy at a store across from the school when the owner's goat let the boy have it.

''That boy started running. But he didn't outrun that goat,'' Barbee said. ''He butted him where the sun didn't shine.''

Barbee and other Franklin alumni from the 1940s and 1950s shared their memories with current students at a bittersweet celebration Friday in the school library. Franklin is highlighting a decade of its history every six weeks until the campus closes at the end of the school year.

Franklin and Lincoln Middle School are closing because the new Craig Middle School is opening on South Judge Ely Boulevard next fall. School officials said renovating the two older campuses would be too costly.

''I'm not entirely happy about it,'' said onetime Bronco Bob Kuykendall, 76. ''I feel the architecture and construction of the newer buildings are not up to par.''

Superintendent David Polnick said plans for Lincoln and Franklin are not final and he is not ready to make them public. The school district is working on boundary plans, so students at those middle schools don't know where they will attend school next fall.

''We can't even come back and visit,'' said Franklin student Tiffany Folds, 14, who sported a red poodle skirt, white socks and a ponytail Friday.

The school encouraged students to dress in retro styles Friday. Many of the boys wore white shirts, blue jeans and slicked back hair. The older folks said the boys back then also rolled up a piece of paper and slipped it into their sleeves, pretending it was a cigarette.

The youngsters giggled over the clothes and hairstyles in black-and-white pictures and in yearbooks on display.

Kuykendall said that when he went to Franklin, it was called North Junior High. There was a ranch across the street, and he and his friends would watch cattle being branded as they walked home from school.

Barbee said she spent the first few weeks of junior high at Abilene High School (now Lincoln) because North Junior High wasn't completed yet. ''It was so crowded and I was scared to death,'' she said.

She said it was a relief to get into the brand new junior high and be among the oldest students there.

Reford and Virginia Echols Schmittou, both 69, met at North Junior High and have been together ever since.

''My football coach told me I had to have a date if I wanted to go to a football game. So I got up the courage to ask her,'' said Reford Schmittou.

Nelda Clinton Smithwick, 65, remembered a more innocent time, when drugs weren't a problem and students left school at lunchtime to eat at home. But her strict Church of Christ parents didn't like the length of the shorts she wore for athletics.

So she ended up the only girl at school with the hem let out of her gym shorts - and with a ruffle sewn on, too.

Why it's closing

Franklin and Lincoln middle schools are closing next spring because Craig Middle School is being built on South Judge Ely Boulevard.

Timeline

1942: North Junior High opens with grades 7-9 at 1200 Merchant St.

1961: Renamed Franklin Junior High

1984: Renamed Franklin Middle School with grades 6-8

2007: Closing

Source: Franklin Middle School