Les Cutler of West Tisbury, a member of the Mansion House Masters Swim Team of Vineyard Haven, competed at the U.S. Masters Swimming National Championship meet held at the University of Texas Swim Center in Austin, Tex., in early May.

More Spectacle Than Sport

The Boston Big Game Fishing Club Monster Shark Tournament has worn out its welcome, not only in the host town of Oak Bluffs, but on the Vineyard altogether.

It is hard to know precisely when the tournament changed from a sport fishing event to a spectacle on the Oak Bluffs harborfront with dead, bloody sharks hung from hooks for weighing. Some say it was the year the television cameras for ESPN arrived, thrusting the tournament — and again the Vineyard — into an unwelcome national spotlight.

Beachcombing Interrupted

The recent discovery old buried ordnance at Cape Pogue serves as a vivid reminder of the past and the active role the Vineyard played during World War II. It may be hard to picture it today, but the Vineyard was a key military installation and training ground for the war.

KATIE’S WORLD

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

A lot of Vineyard organizations have been hurt over the past decade or so by the clash between two types of leadership: the rigid, fear-based, fundamentalist thinking and the flexible, creative, servant leadership which regards its clients as individuals with individual needs.

Of all the quirks that define the Gazette — the seven-column broadsheet, black and white photography, house style that bows to no one — the skyline may be the most often overlooked. Prominent of placement and yet remarkably easy to pass over, it sails above the banner where most papers these days put reefers — those short blurbs, sometimes with a small image, that tease a story inside.

Vis i tors Return

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of May, 1908:

What began last August, when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came here as the leading Democratic presidential candidate to raise money and woo Vineyard voters, has since deteriorated into an unseemly and tedious slugfest that does no credit to her party’s selection process. Indeed, her rejection by every one of the Island’s six towns, and the subsequent elevation of Sen.

SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

While I appreciate restoration ecologist Dick Johnson’s forthright manner in stepping up to accept responsibility, I find that I am not at all reassured by the comments made by Sheriff’s Meadow board members in the Gazette May 23 edition in response to recent incidents of large-scale plant removal from two of their preserves.

Love at first sight it definitely wasn’t in the case of Dawn Greeley. Nor was it at second or third. She was an artist, you see, and I, well, I’m good at putting things in order. She saw the big picture, and I, the pesky details. She was larger than life, and I prefer near invisibility.

And so it went two years ago, as Dawn assumed the chairmanship of the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council, stepping up from vice-chairman, while I continued as secretary.

Carlin Hart has been appointed interim assistant principal at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, according to Dr. James Weiss, the Vineyard superintendent of schools.

In a release yesterday afternoon, Mr. Weiss stated the selected candidate for assistant high school principal had withdrawn at the last minute. He said the appointment of Mr. Hart will allow the high school to continue to move forward while conducting another search for an assistant principal during the school year.