What follows is the list of awards given to Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School students at the annual Honors Night ceremony, held Thursday night at the high school Performing Arts Center.

The rafters echoed with laughter as 12 high school seniors gathered in Polly Hill Arboretum’s far barn to commemorate their graduation with a simple lunch. These students are the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School’s Class of 2013, the school’s largest graduating class since its first class of seniors graduated in 2001.

The effects of Hurricane Sandy are still being felt on the Vineyard Haven harborfront, but marina owners say they are recovering on schedule for the influx of summer boats in coming months.

The October 2012 hurricane destroyed a portion of the town-owned Owen Park dock and severely damaged the dock of the private Vineyard Haven Marina, washing away its replica pilot house.

The data is clear: like the rest of the country, Martha’s Vineyard is bracing for a sharp increase in the population of older residents. The number of Vineyard residents 60 and older is growing at a faster rate then the rest of the state, and that demographic is expected to grow as the baby boomer generation gets older. Some estimates show that Island residents between 60 and 70 years of age will triple by 2020.

Three planets form a line in the early evening this weekend but the alignment won’t last. Mercury, Venus and Jupiter are close together low in the southwestern sky, visible less than an hour after sunset. The view is short, as they set quickly as twilight turns into night.

Venus and Jupiter are the easiest to spot, with Venus being the brightest. Venus is so bright it looks like an airplane coming in with landing lights on. Jupiter appears right underneath and it, too, is bright but not nearly as brilliant.

Nearly twenty years ago a group of parents began formulating a plan to create a new school on Martha’s Vineyard. The idea was to provide another public school option on the Island, one that was still free and taught the same state-mandated framework as other schools, but that was more project-based and gave students the freedom to pursue their own education plan, whether it be mathematics or becoming a better skateboarder.

Workers in downtown Vineyard Haven never needed a watch to know when it was lunchtime. They had their reminder every day when the noon whistle blew from the fire station on Beach street. The sound made dogs howl and, according to an old account from the Gazette, one day a horse died of fright following the whistle blast.

If I had the opportunity to provide a family with all its financial needs for a year, I would stick with the basics, but include things that would carry this family for years to come. My idea is kind of like the old saying: “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.

In January 1851, according to the diary of Jeremiah Pease, a British boat “castaway” off Muskeget with 256 Irish on board. Four froze to death. Who were those nameless people? From the date it is clear they were fleeing from a country that had become a graveyard to seek opportunity and salvation in America. Turning their backs forever on families and communities decimated by famine and oppression, these uninvited and undocumented immigrants hoped to find work and food.

You used to be my favorite without a wink of doubt. “May, the unsurpassable Vineyard May,” I would effuse to mere mainlanders, “riding ashore on perfect waves, your velvet breezes and widening warmth soaking into our bones, your light awakening across greening pastures, emerging leaves holding the softest hues, the pitch and sway of the land still visible through the trees, each day spectacularly tuned to early birds laying their claims and rebuilding their lives.”

Amazing May, month of easy metaphors, making each of us a poet.