Harvard Degree

Harvard University will award a special posthumous degree to Joel Iacoomes, a member of the Wampanoag tribe who died in 1665, shortly after having completed four years of study in Harvard College but just before he was to participate in commencement.

The recognition will be part of the university’s 2011 commencement exercises on May 26.

Mr. Iacoomes was one of the two original Wampanoag students at Harvard. His classmate and fellow Wampanoag, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, graduated from Harvard in 1665.

Gazette Open House

Chilmark Energy Star

The first of the Middle Line Road affordable housing units, owned by Chip and Michele Leonardi and built by Squash Meadow Construction, Inc., has received certification as an Energy Star Version 2 qualified home. This means that after undergoing rigorous testing, the house meets or exceeds strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Senator Wolf Here Today

Cape and Islands Sen. Dan Wolf will hold office hours on the Vineyard today from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in the meeting room at the Oak Bluffs police station. To schedule an appointment call 617-722-1570. At 3:30 p.m. Mr. Wolf will meet with the all-Island selectmen, also at the police station.

Fourth graders at the Tisbury School and their teacher Pam Herman last week presented the American Red Cross with $4,730 to support the Japan Relief Efforts after the earthquake and tsunami disaster. The children organized an event called Jump for Japan, in which they jumped rope and asked friends and family to donate an amount of money for each jump, sometimes a dollar, sometimes more.

The Tri-Town Ambulance committee will recommend Timothy Morrissey for chief of the ambulance service, committee chairman and Aquinnah police chief Randhi Belain said this week.

Mr. Morrissey is not licensed as a paramedic in Massachusetts and is in the process of scheduling a test date to become licensed. Mr. Belain said he will take the recommendation to the Chilmark selectmen after Mr. Morrissey passes the test. The selectmen are the financial managers of the service.

Three Vineyard fishermen had a real-life Jaws moment last Friday morning when they encountered a great white shark circling a dead minke whale that had become tangled in lobster line in the area known as Devil’s Bridge off Aquinnah.

The Island Food Pantry had a record year. More people relied on the food pantry to augment or support their food needs this past winter than in any previous year. The organization goes back to 1981. Armen Hanjian, coordinator for the nonprofit organization committed to help those in need, said they had a record of 91 visitors in one day. In one week in April they had 196 visits.

Oak Bluffs voters are not out of the woods yet when it comes to confronting deficits in their cash-strapped town.

A $180,000 cost overrun on the town health insurance plan will require a special town meeting to transfer money to pay the bill, town administrator Michael Dutton told selectmen at their meeting this week.

READING MY FATHER : A Memoir. By Alexandra Styron. Scribner, New York, N.Y. April 2011. 285 pages, photographs. $25 hardcover.

Could Tolstoy have been wrong? Not about all unhappy families being unhappy in different ways — we’re basically in agreement about that — but where are the happy families to which he alluded? Did he know any? Do we? Families without financial woes? No hurt feelings, no sensitivities clashing with another’s neuroses, no addictions, no dysfunctions of any kind?