Polly Brown of Tisbury, a founder of the Spirit of the Vineyard Award, was herself honored with that award Saturday morning by her colleagues at Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.

Hospice established the award a decade ago to honor volunteers who have given their time, talent and energy to a wide range of Vineyard charities over a long period of time.

More than 40 of her friends, including her brother, Daniel Putnam Brown Jr., gathered for a morning social and speeches at the Howes House in West Tisbury. The gathering was festive and the praise high.

Beginning today, Martha’s Vineyard Community Services will host the two-day fall training conference titled The Many Faces of Trauma at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury. The conference is an opportunity for Island professionals to learn more effective ways to link services and envision new ways to provide integrated services that will support families.

Red Stocking is a long-standing effort to provide food and clothing to Island children from birth through grade eight. Approximately 280 children were served last year by Red Stocking.

For the second week in a row, Chilmark selectmen on Tuesday addressed the continuing struggles of commercial fishermen on the Menemsha harborfront and the state of the town fishing industry.

A number of fishermen, members of the shellfish advisory committee and the town harbor master turned out to discuss rising fuel prices and hear a plan to survey the biology of Menemsha Pond in an effort to enhance fish stock.

At a special town meeting on Monday Chilmark voters will face a slew of town spending requests ranging from money for repairs on the fire station, police station and Squibnocket beach parking lot to design work for a new building on Menemsha harbor.

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Chilmark Community Center. Moderator Everett H. Poole will preside over the session.

Perhaps it was only fitting that the public hearing before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission on a plan to expand the baseball field at Veira Park last Thursday took place during game five of the American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians.

And both Jacobs Field in Cleveland and in the Olde Stone Building in Oak Bluffs saw their fair share of tense moments.

A Vineyard Haven man accused of sexually assaulting a woman after a wedding party three years ago was convicted of rape by a jury last week and sentenced to up to seven years in prison by a Dukes County Superior Court judge.

The Hon. C. Brian McDonald last Friday sentenced Richard Skrzypczyk, 59, to a prison term of no less than five and no more than seven years at MCI Cedar Junction, a maximum security facility located in Walpole. The jury took less than three hours to find him guilty.

Old Houses, Living History

There is something sad about an old house being torn down; it’s like a friendship that suddenly disappears, leaving behind only memories and melancholy.

Wind Futures

At a time when the economic and ecological costs of fossil fuels continue to climb, Vineyarders are growing interested in the power of wind.

Following decades of almost no wind power generation on the Island, proposals are starting to pop up across the Vineyard to generate electricity through wind turbines.

In recent weeks, boards in Chilmark and West Tisbury together have approved three new wind turbines, essentially doubling the number of modern turbines now operating on the Island.

Fall Days

Autumn weather this year has been nonstop Indian summer, with mild temperatures conducive to all the best the Vineyard has to offer: hiking through long woodland trails with the soft crunch of newly fallen leaves underfoot, dip-netting for scallops and hauling a basket home to shuck for early Sunday supper, gathering armfuls of russet and teal hydrangeas from the garden to bring indoors, taking one last sail, one last paddle, one last bracing swim.