The Lyrid meteor shower is tonight. For those who love to sit out on a still night and watch shooting stars, tonight is the first big opportunity for the year. If the weather does not cooperate, there may be something to see tomorrow night too.

Lasell Dean’s List

Kris McCabe of Kingston, N.Y. and Edgartown was named to the dean’s list at Lasell College in Newton for the fall semester. A senior, he is majoring in secondary English education. He also was this year’s captain on the men’s college cross country team. He is the son of Brian McCabe and Kristi Jo Weber-McCabe of Kingston, N.Y., and Edgartown.

Hello, Filip

Nadia Turanska-Alberghini and Garrett Alberghini of Oak Bluffs announce the birth of a second son, Filip Alois Alberghini, born on April 14, 2011, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Filip weighed 7 pounds, 2.8 ounces at birth. He is welcomed by big brother Adrian Alberghini.

Falmouth Academy Standouts

David C. Faus, headmaster of Falmouth Academy, announced that nine Vineyard students were named to the academy headmaster’s list for the second trimester. They are: seniors Emelia Armstead of Edgartown and Kinsman Maynard of Chilmark; eighth graders Caley Bennett, Alec Cobban and Quinn Cobban of Edgartown, Eli Hanschka of Vineyard Haven and Aidan Huntington of West Tisbury; and seventh graders Zachary Bresnick and Nathan D’Angelo of West Tisbury.

Collegiate Scholar

Brianna Buchanan of Vineyard Haven has been nominated for membership in the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. She is a freshman at Northern Arizona University.

KATHIE CASE

508-627-5349

(kathleencase@comcast.net)

I think Mother Nature is confused. This is April so we have showers, but the wind should have been last month. But when the wind does not blow the weather is warm and the sunshine is welcome.

As Farm Institute manager Julie Olson backed up her trailer full of pigs at Adams Farm in Athol, there was little indication she was outside of a slaughterhouse. The vista over the factory town is vast, animals patiently wait in their stalls in the large red barn and the smell of livestock is no different than on the plains of Katama.

The Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society and Island Grown Initiative have joined forces in a venture to build a slaughterhouse behind the fairgrounds in West Tisbury.

The project is still in the very early stages of discussion and no permits have been obtained, but preliminary talks between the agricultural society and the nonprofit IGI are under way to allow a slaughterhouse facility to be built behind the new barn on society land.

Plans to build a roundabout at the blinker intersection in Oak Bluffs are back on the front burner, and on Wednesday this week representatives from the Massachusetts Highway Department and the engineering and construction firm Greenman Pedersen Inc. made their case, saying it will save lives, improve traffic and even cut down on emissions. Just don’t call it a rotary, they said.

Tisbury voters will have only one election contest to decide on Tuesday, but it is a hot one, between two men who have served as selectmen, for whom it is a very personal contest.

Tom Pachico served nine years before Jeff Kristal beat him in the annual town election three years ago by a mere 14 votes. Neither makes any secret of the antipathy between them.

Talk to either of them about the issues in the campaign, and it very quickly turns into a recitation of the alleged shortcomings of the other.