FOR NANCY WHITING

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Nancy Whiting, former librarian of the West Tisbury library. She made it classy to love books, and generations of up-Islanders benefitted from it.

She was already a senior citizen 35 years ago when she was introducing us (the 25 or so students of the West Tisbury elementary school) to the wonders of reading. That was the library on Music street (one room per floor), next door to the old West Tisbury school (which was all of three rooms). Nancy was the grown-ups’ librarian downstairs; the children’s section was upstairs and countless kids passed countless hours in its sunny window seats, devouring books.

Nancy presided over a world that made young people want to spend time around books.

I remember the pride of checking out a grown-up book downstairs with Nancy the first time. I don’t remember the book itself, but I do remember being pleased that Nancy would see I was graduating to a wider world of reading.

My work requires me to spend a lot of time in libraries, especially big research ones, and they are wonderful places — but there is nothing like a home town librarian to foster the love of reading and learning. Thank you, Nancy.

Nicole Galland

Vineyard Haven

PEACE SCHOLARSHIPS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

We wish publicly to thank those who in the memory of Peter Luce have sent generous contributions to the Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council, earmarked for the peace scholarship fund.

The peace council is devoted to fostering nonviolence, justice and peace in our hearts, within the peace council, in our Island community, in our nation and throughout the world. It encourages people to pool their diverse experiences and ideas for the development and delivery of initiatives that put our shared commitment to peace into effective action.

The peace council was very important to our friend Peter, and especially the scholarships for graduating seniors, which he initiated and nurtured. With other members of the scholarship committee, he devoted many hours each year to evaluating the creative and moving essays on peacemaking written by applicants, and to the difficult task of selecting the few recipients that our meager budget affords.

Our scholarships have hitherto been more symbolic than munificent, but we have good hopes for improvement. A modest bequest and a relatively substantial donation will be seed money for a small endowment which we hope will grow over time. We would like to prepare a booklet of writings on peacemaking by Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School seniors applying for the scholarships in the hope that donations for these at events sponsored by the peace council will help enhance that fund.

Your contributions in loving memory of Peter Luce are an important gesture to that end, and we greatly appreciate them.

Bruce Nevin

Edgartown

Bruce Nevin is treasurer for the Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council. Donations to the scholarship fund may be sent to 101 Chase Road, Edgartown MA. 02539.

•

JOIN THE CAUSE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

A group of concerned citizens representing various organizations have been meeting sporadically over the past few months to begin an effort to look at options for improving conditions at Eastville Point Beach. This beach, neglected and underappreciated over the years, is a potential jewel for those of us who enjoy beaches, birds and wildlife, fishing and just plain walking; it is an unbelievably unique piece of land with views of Vineyard Haven Harbor and East Chop.

From its beginning as a very natural and unassuming shoreline environment, this beach was established as a public place through the gift of a generous landowner as well as some creative funding and efforts by conservation groups. The beach has unfortunately fallen into a state of nearly complete neglect and we are hopeful that the time is right to look at possible solutions to this situation.

We understand that the ultimate responsibility lies with the three current landowners: Dukes County and the towns of Oak Bluffs and Tisbury, but that does not mean they alone have to take on this effort. Our small group needs more volunteers so that we can form and develop a working committee. We have identified some funding options but need to make more progress on securing grants and other forms of funding to make site improvements. We need volunteers to help develop a management plan and bring ideas and energy to the group.

Our first priority is an information kiosk and for that we are looking for donations of building materials and possibly labor. This effort could also benefit from donations to help us gain some momentum and make some progress on cleaning up this beach and completing some much needed landscaping so that people can begin to appreciate what we are trying to preserve.

If you are interested in participating, either with your time or your donations, contact the Eastville Point Beach Committee care of Tristan Israel at 508-693-0196. Our next meeting is on Dec. 5 at noon in the county Offices at the airport. Please consider joining us.

Melinda Loberg, Tristan Israel

and David Nash

Vineyard Haven

•

KIDS OF THE FUTURE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

We have no worries with kids like these:

Ann Hoyle from the Edgartown School invited me to speak to her group of eighth graders this past Tuesday (Nov. 6) about renewable energy and how it related to the future of Martha’s Vineyard.

I have never been so impressed as I was with these kids — they were attentive, probing, thoughtful and wise beyond their years. While much credit is due to the kids, a tremendous amount is due to Ms. Hoyle for their guidance.

We discussed geothermal systems (both hot rock and solar), the ideal gas law (the hows and whys of geothermal heat pumps), nuclear power, wind turbines and how the Island Plan serves as a road map toward a sustainable future for the Vineyard.

We discussed the progressive goals of the town of Aquinnah in its efforts to lead the green revolution here on the Vineyard. Presently, the kids brought up the push/pull of private versus public resources and how to fairly benefit from a common resource such as the wind. Next thing I knew, we were discussing the Cape Wind project and how that fit into the public/private model.

They were also very interested in solutions locally to move us in the right direction. I described our vision that we have presented to the charter school for a net zero, carbon neutral facility — through the use of a wind turbine, geothermal heat pumps and an electrolyzer the school would eliminate fossil fuel use, enjoy yearly revenue from the sale of green electricity and use hydrogen generated from the wind to power their school busses. All using off-the-shelf parts, all doable right now.

I told them to keep up the good work — I said this has got to be the single most exciting time of our lives — we have an enormous problem (global warming and peak oil), we have tremendous solutions (wind turbines, solar collectors and heat pumps) and we have kids ready to put these solutions to work.

Thank you Ann Hoyle, our future is in good hands.

Brian Nelson

Vineyard Haven