They came for prizes and they came to support each other. The 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby awards ceremony at Nectar’s on Sunday was a festival of storytelling, stories told by those who won and those who didn’t. And two anglers who were friends and relatives to many there walked away as the proudest owners, one of a truck, the other of a powerboat.

The Vineyard Gazette was named weekly Newspaper of the Year in its circulation category by the New England Newspaper and Press Association yesterday, the top prize in the annual newspaper competition among weekly and small daily newspapers in New England.

The Gazette also won a prestigious Publick Occurrences Award for Outstanding Journalism. The award went to Gazette senior writer Mike Seccombe for his series of stories on offshore wind development last year.

Despite a drop in the level of matching funds from the state, the Community Preservation Act has seen more than $825,000 directed from the state to Island towns this year, with the final installment delivered this month.

Combined with the local revenues, this means town community preservation boards have about $2 million for open space, community housing, historic preservation and recreation projects.

When Warren Gosson makes his pitch for the job of Dukes County Sheriff, he talks largely about one issue: addiction.

“This Island is loaded with heroin and prescription pills,” he said this week.

And no one, it seems to him, takes the problem seriously enough.

Not the media, which are more interested in presenting a picture of the Island as a happy destination.

Not the law enforcement agencies, which are under-resourced — they have no dog unit and the drug task force has just one full-time staff member.

With the agreement entered into a decade ago between Martha’s Vineyard towns and Comcast coming up for renewal, Island residents now have their chance to pass judgment on the performance of the cable company.

“What this is,” according to MVTV’s executive director Julienne Turner, “is a review of how the company has performed in the past and what we might need moving forward so that we can be smart about negotiating that agreement for the next 10 years.”

Karen Coffey is tiny, but she packs a huge wallop psychically. Her clear eyes do not look away when she speaks to you. When I encountered her in her shop, Pyewacket in Vineyard Haven, I immediately felt the connection of a person who spoke from somewhere outside of her own ego.

Last week, I had a visit from old friends John and Michelle Mackin who live in Greensboro, Vt. John is a carpenter and we spent three days together restoring two large bureaus in my home, me painting the drawers and John redoing the countertops. As John worked, I immediately noticed a sound I hear often when carpenters toil over their labor — a soft, tuneless whistling.

“What the hell?” I thought, “makes carpenters so happy to be using their tools?”

Need a French-themed fundraiser for language students hoping to travel to France next spring school vacation? How about pizza night at the Orange Peel bakery in Aquinnah?

If you think pizza isn’t particularly French, consider this: France is the second-biggest consumer of pizza in the world. (The U.S. comes first; Italy only a distant third.) Furthermore, a French chef currently holds the title for the world’s best pizza recipe, with a topping featuring fois gras.

INFORMATION, PLEASE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)