Students and families gathered at the Tabernacle Friday as nearly $947,000 in scholarships were awarded. The scholarships are part of a community-wide program that provides a much-needed financial break to seniors and post-graduates.

The Tisbury town hall was briefly evacuated Friday afternoon after officials received a suspicious letter that police described as "ranting" but not particularly worrisome.

The letter contained no "particular threat to anybody or any town," Tisbury police Sgt. Timothy Stobie said, and the building was evacuated out of an abundance of caution.

A federal lawsuit challenging the state’s right to reserve a casino license in southeastern Massachusetts for an Indian tribe will go forward without any involvement from the Vineyard.

In a decision issued yesterday, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton denied attempts by the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the town of Aquinnah and the Aquinnah Gay Head Community Association to intervene in a case brought by a private casino developer against Gov. Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

Drug task force officers arrested Fernando A. Jesurum, 26, after he arrived on the Island via ferry Tuesday night, Edgartown Det. Michael Snowden said in a statement of facts about the case. He was arraigned Thursday in Edgartown district court on charges of possession to distribute a class B drug (cocaine), subsequent offense and cocaine trafficking. Bail was set at $40,000 cash.

Allen P. Spaulding Jr., 70, was the sole occupant of the 1965 fixed-wing Maule Bee Dee M-4-210 that crashed Wednesday morning on Cuttyhunk, state police said. The pilot was determined to be dead at the scene.

Over the next year, a million tiny pioneers will arrive at Sengekontacket Pond. Simply by growing from the size of a pencil eraser to a full three inches, a million oysters are the key part of a project launched by Oak Bluffs and Edgartown to cultivate the shellfish in Sengekontacket, which has been found to have nitrogen levels well above acceptable limits.

Part of the Tisbury Great Pond is about to become an oyster reef, thanks to a project sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and the towns of Chilmark and West Tisbury.

The propagation projects calls for putting down 100 cubic yards of sea clam shells as culch and then planting 250,000 juvenile oysters.

The sound of bleating echoed across the water.

“Do you hear them?” Kristen Fauteux said standing at the edge of Daggett Pond at Cedar Tree Neck Sanctuary.

The still June morning had just settled over the pond on Wednesday as three pygmy goats made their maiden voyage from the head of the pond to its eastern edge, a small wake trailing behind their raft.

Skim the record books for the past four years of high school soccer, basketball and baseball, and you’ll notice a recurring name. Skim the grade books at the high school and you’ll notice the name again, this time at the top of the class, in the valedictorian spot for the class of 2013. Who is this Jack Roberts guy?

Some are accomplished writers. Others are star athletes. Still others are artists. They have opinions and passions and disagreements among themselves. Their interests are so wide-ranging that even the students themselves are hard put to find a description for the class of 2013.