Members of the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce are invited to submit their nominations for consideration to serve as volunteers on the chamber’s board of directors.

The board’s primary role is to set policies and fiduciary oversight; members also bring their expertise and ideas for a vibrant business community.

The nominee’s residence will be considered, with an aim to keeping the board diversified.

A small group of eager five-year-olds gathered on the beach in Vineyard Haven Wednesday night to celebrate an important milestone: graduation from the Garden Gate Child Development Center.

Announcing Declan

Deirdre Bohan and David Diriwachter joyfully announce the birth of their son, Declan Emmet Diri-wachter, on June 18 at 3:19 p.m. Declan weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces at birth. Declan is enthusiastically welcomed by friends and family, including the Bohans of Vineyard Haven.

Dean’s List

Megan Honey of Vineyard Haven has been named to the dean’s list at the University of New Hampshire for the spring semester, earning honors.

As children, we anticipated the July Fourth excursion to Edgartown to take in that rare and wonderful “blink-and-you-missed-it” parade to be followed by hot dogs, ice cream and fireworks.

Great Ferry Heist

From Gazette editions of July, 1935:

In the rush of our day to day lives with all its routines and rigors, we often fail to take note or are caught unaware of those special moments that end up being among the most important of our lives. Well, last week, we experienced exactly one of those days and we cannot let it go uncelebrated. Just 12 years removed from bankruptcy and following nine years of planning, three years of fund-raising and three years in construction — we officially welcomed our first patients to the brand new Martha’s Vineyard Hospital on June 22.

The ancient signatures on the yellow horsehide were hard to read. But when I first held that old baseball in my hands in the early 1950s, I had barely learned to spell my own name, let alone decipher the signatures of old Pittsburgh Pirates players. My grandmother Mimmie never commented on the relic, which she kept, oddly, in the upper right corner of her sewing machine table.

Islanders take the ferry to that other place, America. We even voted in Nineteen-Seventy-Seven to leave the state, and maybe the nation, too — when Beacon Hill moved to remove the Island’s seat in the statehouse, thereby leaving us with less representation for the taxation states always impose. So what if our ragtag secessionist revolution failed politically; the spirit of separation remains strong. Few remember the proposed Vineyard anthem, but a few more still have the flags of our one nation, and more than a few have good stories from those heady days when freedom was on every Islander’s mind again. In our hearts we remain a place apart.

Independence Day 2010

I have been attending Camp Jabberwocky for 47 years. Participating in the Fourth of July parade is one of my favorite activities while at camp. It gives me and my fellow campers the opportunity to celebrate Independence Day as well as our independence. In our outrageous costumes with our fun-loving counselors, we also express our appreciation to our Martha’s Vineyard friends.