Dean’s List

Ryann Emin of Chilmark, the daughter of Wanda and Keith Emin, has been named to the Bridgewater State College dean’s list for the fall 2009 semester. She is studying early childhood education.

Conservation Funds

The Edey Foundation, founded by the late Maitland Edey of Seven Gates Farm, has funds available for grants to Island nonprofit organizations.

The foundation provides money for conservation and environmental programs on Martha's Vineyard. Submissions that relate to ongoing conservation, energy, education and scientific studies are welcome. Construction or building projects are ineligible.

U.S. Department of the Interior Secre tary Ken Salazar made a big point of saying recently that wind development had to be done right and in the “right places.” No one can disagree with those sentiments, and they were certainly issued for public consumption. However, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), which is under his control, doesn’t seem to have heard him, or perhaps just tuned him out.

Behind his eyes the part of him

That always knew the joke

Till at the end the only thing he needed

Was a smile.

— Gerry Storrow, from Requiem

Dan Aronie died early last Friday morning at his home in Vineyard Haven. He was 38. Dan had suffered for much of his life with both diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

There were so many Dan Aronies. And on Jan. 29 at 1:21 in the morning on the fullest, brightest moon of the whole year, one month after his 38th birthday, with his brother and his father present, we lost them all.

The Vineyard has a way of attracting people with big personalities and big ideas. Some stay forever, some make a mark and move on, but the biggest leave something behind that forever changes the place.

One of those people, Bob Windsor, died this week, but not before leaving a legacy of community radio that lives on today in WMVY.

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Mental illness affects not only the person who is ill, but their families and loved ones as well. The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts is sponsoring a free family-to-family educational course for family members of individuals with a serious mental illness. The course has been given nationwide to over 100,000 family members since its inception. It is taught by two trained family member volunteers and is intended to help family caregivers cope with a close relative’s mental illness.

From Vineyard Gazette editions of February, 1935:

Winter has continued to hold the Vineyard in its frigid grasp during the past week. Ice on fresh and salt water has begun to grow heavy. Drift ice in the harbors and the Sound massed together. The steamboats were delayed and began to use the Quicks Hole route, Woods Hole being closed by the ice pack on the bay side.

HAITIAN RELIEF

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On behalf of the Haitian people, I’d like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the Vineyard Gazette, especially to Julia Wells and her staff, namely Peter Brannen, Cooper Davis and Mark Lovewell, whom I had a chance to meet.

The Sound of a Sacred Place

As the sun rose in the crimson sky on Tuesday, two men sat in the bitter cold, watching it together. One is charged with protecting the natural resources and heritage of the United States of America, the other with the same duty to his people, the Wampanoag American Indians.