Ashlynn Arrives

Laura Meader and Willie Meader of Edgartown announce the birth of a daughter, Ashlynn Rose Meader, born on July 20, 2010, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Ashlynn weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces at birth.

No charges will be filed against the driver of the tractor trailer that was involved in a fatal bicycle accident on July 6 in Vineyard Haven, a Cape and Islands district attorney confirmed yesterday.

Student Bankers

Once upon a time I would have been the perfect contestant on The Price Is Right. Bob Barker would walk up to a woman in the audience and offer $50 if she had an elephant in her bag. It would have only taken me a few seconds to rummage and come up with the three-inch elephant that was part of my son’s Bronx Zoo set. I always had that elephant ready to amuse one child if we were caught in traffic, or if one of the other children was in the orthodontist’s chair.

PATIENCE, PLEASE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Residents of the Vineyard have a well-timed opportunity to defend dissent next Thursday (July 29) when notable residents will gather at the Chilmark Community Center at 7 p.m. to read the works of famous authors, poets, scholars and journalists who have been excluded from the United States because of their political views.

Spelling Bee

Island Theatre Workshop opens a new production this weekend at Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven. It’s the Tony award-winning comedy and musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, directed by Taffy McCarthy and Linda Berg. This fun, high-energy show opened last night and continues through August 8.

The people of Oak Bluffs have spoken: they wanted a pharmacy, and now they have one. Conroy’s Apothecary has been welcoming new customers for a little over two weeks, and hopes to be there for generations to come.

“Everyone’s been very welcoming, the town, and all the people,” owner Stan Hersh said at his new store earlier this week. “We’re very excited.”

Three Decades, Built the Old Way

The names of the wooden boats they build by hand are a metaphor for the work they do: sturdy, elegant and graceful, even a bit mysterious. Spoken aloud, they take on their own poetic rhythm. Rebecca, Juno, Epiphany. Zorra. Ilona, Elita, Christine. Hope.

The Holmes Hole Sailing Association’s summer season of handicap racing from Vineyard Haven harbor continued Thursday night, July 1, a beautiful evening with a pleasant 5 to 10 knots of west-southwest wind. Fourteen boats posted for the 6 p.m. start at red nun 6. The course took the fleet to nun 4 at West Chop, then to green can 23a at East Chop and back to nun 6. The first leg was a broad reach on the port tack. After rounding the nun, a run downwind ensued, with the close reach on the starboard tack for the final leg to the finish.