Melinda Loberg was sworn in as a Dukes County commissioner Thursday after a 4 to 3 vote by the county commission on Wednesday night. She will fill the seat left vacant by Paul Strauss, who retired earlier this summer.

“This is not what I saw myself being at this time in my life,” Ms. Loberg said on the phone yesterday. “But I was encouraged by folks in the community who I respect.”

Ms. Loberg, a resident of Vineyard Haven, has come to the Island for summers her whole life; she moved here full time in 1999.

Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., a renowned African American literary and history scholar, will be the featured speaker for the eighth annual summer signature event sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Branch of The Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

The event will be August 17, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Performing Arts Center.

African American Lives will be the focus of Dr. Gates’s illustrated presentation.

Two years ago this month, Larry R. Couture took a walk on the beach in Aquinnah and spotted something shining in the sand. He found a piece of clear crystal quartz the size of a tennis ball. Though he didn’t know it at the time, it was a rare find.

This summer, Mr. Couture returned to the Island carrying a 60-carat quartz crystal. The gem was cut from the stone.

Tax Free Weekend

The Tisbury Business Association invites all to shop in Vineyard Haven during the tax-free holiday weekend. For every purchase of $25 or more made at any Vineyard Haven business on August 15, 16 and 17, you will receive a free movie ticket good for any show at the Main street Capawock Theatre on Sunday August 17. There is a maximum of four tickets per receipt; 200 tickets are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

West Tisbury selectmen on Wednesday approved a plan to start removing a number of dead trees around town, some of which are hanging over well-traveled roads and pathways and raising concerns about public safety.

Tree warden Jeremiah Brown told selectmen that an estimated 300 trees directly abutting public roads are threatening to drop their branches or fall over. He said approximately 30 of the trees need immediate removal. “Some of these need to be dealt with now . . . we cannot wait,” Mr. Brown said.

The Vineyard Conservation Society executive director Brendan O’Neill has been named the 2008 recipient of the Nicholas A. Robinson Environmental Award for his placed-based environmental work on Martha’s Vineyard. The award recognizes significant public service contributions in the environmental field by a graduate of the environmental legal studies program at Pace University School of Law in New York.

Mr. O’Neill shares this year’s honor with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also a Pace graduate.

For a Vineyard kid, “when you first move away, there are two places: on-Island and off-Island,” said Kelley Callahan, viewing the exhibition by Marshall Pratt at the Periwinkle Gallery in Oak Bluffs which opened last weekend. In the show, A Vineyard Boy in Boston, Pratt uses photographs to depict this contrast, for instance by juxtaposing the image of a rock at Squibnocket and a similar rock in a Boston slum.

Writers Talking

Vineyard Haven authors Geraldine Brooks and Tony Horwitz, a rare pair with his and hers Pulitzers, are in conversation with Charlayne Hunter Gault on Sunday. The couple’s only Island book event this summer begins at 7.30 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, with wine and cheese, book signing and reception to follow. Suggested donation is $25 to benefit the center’s educational programs.

Anyone who’s ever stumbled upon a hidden gem in the Thrift Shop has experienced the thrill of finding treasure amid the stacks of books, games, clothing, kitchen utensils and other odds and ends. The annual Chicken Alley Art Show, set for this Sunday afternoon and now in its sixth season, offers customers the opportunity to purchase the finest art and craft items culled from the shelves over the past year. The proceeds from the event have grown from $3,000 to $40,000 in five years, with all earnings benefitting Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.

Sullivan Walk and Run

The Hon. Louis W. Sullivan, M.D. and Ginger Sullivan will sponsor the 20th annual 5K Run/Walk Road Race for Health and Fitness on Saturday, August 23 at 9 a.m.

Participants may preregister and pick up numbers on Friday, August 22 from 3 to 6 p.m. in the main lobby at the hospital. Please enter the hospital via the Eastville avenue entrance and proceed to the new lots behind the hospital. Follow signs to the new main entrance. The first 300 registered participants will receive a commemorative T-shirt.