Dean’s List

Christine Anthony-Kurth, of Oak Bluffs, is on the Dean’s List for the first quarter at Ulster Boces Nursing School in Lake Katrine, N.Y.

The Vineyard high school football team may have suffered a disappointing finish to the season — losing 40-19 to Amesbury in the Division 3A state championship game — but there has been much to be positive about in recent weeks as the postseason awards continued to pile up.

Interested in blogging? Bioethics? Belly dancing? The Adult and Community Education Program (ACE MV) announces its new catalog of courses — including each of those — for the winter session at the high school from Jan. 12 to Feb. 13. There are 40 subjects included. Classes meet once a week on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evenings at 6:30 p.m. There also will be single-event seminars.

The variety is amazing on the Vineyard’s electric avenues of holiday decorations. Pack the family in the car and do some exploring in the dark of night; conveniently, that starts about 4:15 at this time of year.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association regional council kicked off the automatic external defibrillators for life program with a $500 donation to Martha’s Vineyard VFW Post 9261.

The new program was started to help purchase AEDs for nonprofit organizations that have 25 or more members. At an event at the VFW last summer, a patron suffered a non -fatal cardiac arrest at the post. The post leadership felt that since they have had two previous such events, that they wanted to have an AED on premises. They purchased an AED and started a drive to offset the cost.

The Dukes County Commission voted without dissent on Wednesday to name Russell Smith, the longtime legislative liaison to outgoing state representative Eric T. Turkington, as the permanent full-time county manager.

Mr. Smith was hired in April to fill the vacant county manager position as a subcontractor on a part-time basis. With the unanimous vote this week, the county has its first full-time manager since E. Winn Davis left the post in August of 2007.

Residents of Holly Bear Lane in Edgartown wanted to complain about the collection of cars, trucks and boats that they see at the end of their road.

But putting a name to the problem at a Monday meeting of the selectmen proved tricky.

“We came here to express concerns and frustration at the junkyard,” said resident Margot Datz. “Over the years we have shown patience,” she said.

Discussion centered around whether Holly Bear Lane property owner Christopher Chambers is operating a scrap metal business or not.

High-speed ferry service to the Vineyard will be cut significantly next season, under changes approved this week by the Steamship Authority to the Hy-Line schedule.

Hy-Line, which operates the Lady Martha service between Hyannis and Oak Bluffs, will cut back by two round trips per day in the shoulder seasons, and one per day in the high season.

Almost every year, during the Advent Christmas season, I spend some time thinking of Christmas past and how the past may help us celebrate the meaning of this season in the present and in the days to come. The other day, I sat in the silence of my study rereading my Christmas sermons of yesteryear. Each reading took me back to that particular Christmas with a tremendous sense of crispness and clarity. And as I sat there thinking and feeling . . . I could not help wondering if all those words really made any difference to the people who heard them.

It was the last day of shotgun season for deer hunting and the state forest was the place to be to bag a buck before the sun went down. Or a land bank property. Or a private estate, for those with permission.

No hunter would have thought to look inside the old Edgartown School, where one deer was either smart enough or lucky enough to avoid the business end of a shotgun.