Quilt Winner

The raffle held to benefit the African Artists Community Development Project was drawn on Christmas Day out of the Tuareg basket. Susan Spence was the winner of a beautiful quilt that was a collaboration between craftswomen in Lusaka, Zambia, who sewed the panels, and women on Martha’s Vineyard, who pieced the quilt together.

We wish a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to Gazette readers near and far. Coverage of a Christmas Day home fire appears on Page Two. The post-holiday snowstorm is reported on Page Nine. Our offices will close at noon today.

Correction

MV Glee creator Sandy Stone’s husband Mike Benjamin was misidentified in a story about the new IMP space published last week. The Gazette regrets the error.

In her summation of the Martha’s Vineyard economy, presented to an audience of Island businesswomen in November, Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce executive director Nancy Gardella labeled herself an optimist. For certain sectors, she said, things were going well. Very well.

After six years on the dock, owners Stanley and Lanette Larsen are selling the Menemsha Fish Market. The couple posted the sale notice on Craigslist Dec. 27 with Mr. Larsen as the contact person, although the owners did not advertise an asking price.

“Profitable fish market for sale in the beautiful fishing village of Menemsha,” the advertisement reads. “Surrounded by fishing docks and close to Menemsha beach. Open year round. Serious inquiries only.”

Now and Zen Win

Martha’s Vineyard, Now and Zen by Susan Klein and Alan Brigish is the winner in the Wild Card category of the New England Book Festival.

The following is from newenglandbookfestival.com:

Submitted works are judged by a panel of industry experts using the following criteria: general excellence, the author’s passion for telling a good story, and the potential of the work to reach a wider audience.

Opening a massive new front for offshore energy development around the Island this week, state and federal officials kicked off a federal leasing process that will see wind developers bid on blocks of the Atlantic south of the Vineyard and Nantucket.

A raging house fire marked a terrible end to an otherwise peaceful Christmas day for one family in West Tisbury.

Wet, windy, warm and sunny are terms to describe weather, and there was plenty of it on the Vineyard in 2010. There was record rainfall. The National Weather Service cooperative station recorded 56.18 inches of precipitation for the year, 10 inches above average.

Yet for all the rain clouds, the Vineyard had one of the sunniest, hot, dry summers in a while. Much of the drama of bad wet weather, or the threat of bad weather, came late in the summer, making the year good for tourism and also fine for the aquifer.

A huge snowstorm that brought blizzard conditions and record snowfall to much of the Northeast a day after Christmas was comparatively kind here, where only a light snow fell. Still, with winds gusting to nearly 70 miles per hour on the Vineyard and extreme high tides, the severe storm left thousands of down-Island homes without power, many holiday travellers stranded, Island roads flooded and icy enough to cause several accidents, and erosion transforming some Island beaches.