The Martha’s Vineyard Magazine last week was a finalist for the 2009 National City and Regional Magazine Awards in two categories: general excellence and ancillary publications for its Home and Garden magazine.

“Martha’s Vineyard succeeds at its mission to capture the character of the Island while focusing on issues for locals and visitors alike. Each issue offers an eclectic mix of features, a bit of history and good service information,” judges wrote in their comments on general excellence.

A state board that controls the sale of alcohol has been keeping an eye on the town of Oak Bluffs this spring, and the result this week was citations to four establishments for selling alcohol to minors.

The most serious violator is The Ritz Cafe, which has been ordered to close its doors for 10 days in July by the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC).

In these tough times, Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson is as eager as anyone else to find some tiny cause for optimism, and thinks he might at last have found one.

The number of people riding the ferries to the Vineyard has ticked up at last, just as the tourist season is starting.

Not by much. The number of passengers carried by SSA ferries rose 0.9 per cent for the month of May, compared with the same month last year. And the number of cars rose 2.4 per cent.

A new report released this week by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission lays out an ambitious plan to fill in the gaps in the network of bike paths that runs through the three up-Island towns to create a continuous loop with better access to downtown areas while avoiding dangerous intersections like Five Corners in Vineyard Haven.

Class of 2009
(PDF)

Good morning! High School commencement ceremonies begin at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs. Read the Tuesday Gazette for full coverage.

Thousands upon thousands of books now line the new shelves of the Bunch of Grapes bookstore, ready for its reopening this Saturday. But one book in particular played a big role in determining the new look of refurbished business.

It is Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy: the Science of Shopping. The wider aisles, the more open look to the place, even the repositioned sales desk, all are down to what owner Dawn Braasch learned from Mr. Underhill

A state grant awarded by the Department of Conservation and Recreation for repairs to the Oak Bluffs waterfront is now the subject of a complicated and contentious conflict, with town officials clashing over how the funds should be used and where the matching portion of the grant — around $300,000 — should come from.

They’ve left no time to worry about the future. Instead, they have directed their energy toward preparing for it.

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High school Class of 2009 has not been coddled into believing that the journey ahead will be easy. It is difficult to maintain raw optimism in the face of a crippling recession and a staggering job market.

It seems appropriate, somehow, that the first reward Bethany Pennington received upon hearing that she was the valedictorian of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School class of 2009 was extra homework.

“The principal called me into his office and said, ‘You’re the valedictorian. You have to make a speech at graduation and it’s due in three weeks,’” she said, laughing, in an interview at her father’s office yesterday.

A series of wetlands violations in the town of Chilmark underpin drama which is the stuff of a daytime soap opera, complete with tangled relationships, trespassing orders and bitter class divisions.

A fiery public hearing at a recent meeting of the Chilmark conservation commission revealed more than one layer of problems at the Aerie, a mixed neighborhood of seasonal and year-round residents off North Road which has seen turmoil over prolonged construction projects and multiple environmental abuses.