The four churches of the United Methodist Cooperative Ministry will hold a joint service at the Edgartown United Methodist Church, the Old Whaling Church, on Main street in Edgartown on Sunday, Sept. 30 at 11 a.m.

Troubling Youth Statistics

The percentage leaps off the page. According to a Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted this past February among Island students from seventh through twelfth grades, twelve per cent of the high school students said they had attempted suicide in the previous twelve months.

That’s a startling number in itself. It looms even larger when compared to the response to the same question in three similar Vineyard surveys between two thousand and two thousand five: five per cent.

Today is the right time for Aquinnah to opt for energy independence and conservation with a major town-owned windturbine at the Gay Head Cliffs area.

Peg’s Steady Regime

Vineyard Dance

Vineyard Dance begins their fall classes on Monday, Oct. 1, at Nathan Mayhew Seminars on North William street in Vineyard Haven.

Classes for adults and teens are offered in modern dance, modern jazz, ballet and floorbarre.

Younger students may enroll in creative movement, modern dance and ballet.

Call 508-693-2257 for more information.

Corrections

A photo caption accompanying a story in last Friday’s Gazette about five Island women who traveled to North Carolina to advocate civil rights misidentified several of the women. From left to right, they are Polly Woollcott Murphy; Nancy Hodgson, later known as Nancy Whiting; Peg Lillienthal; Virginia Mazer; and Nancy Smith. The story also misspelled Mrs. Mazer’s name.

Martha's Vineyard Regional High School principal Margaret (Peg) Regan quietly announced late last week that she will resign at the end of the school year.

Mrs. Regan submitted a letter of resignation to Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss on Friday.

It wasn’t a rain delay that postponed Thursday’s matchup between proponents of a plan to add a second baseball diamond at Veira Park in Oak Bluffs and a group of neighbors who oppose the expanded facility on grounds that it will create problems with noise, traffic and safety.

A public hearing before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission was instead postponed — actually continued — due to a potential lighting problem.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission on Thursday heard emotional testimony, both from a group of Edgartown neighbors who support a plan to protect several old pathways from development, and from a well-known Island family who argued the plan violates their property rights.

About a dozen residents living near the old pathways — called ancient ways — argued in favor of a plan to place five ways in a special protection zone that would limit their use and prevent them from being clear-cut or widened.

With well over 2,000 fishermen competing in the 62nd annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, the contest is now on the home stretch.

More than 13,000 pounds of striped bass, bluefish, bonito and false albacore have been weighed in at the derby headquarters so far.

Last weekend the evidence of interest could be seen along Vineyard shores, all populated by anglers with gear. The flat waters from Chappaquiddick to Aquinnah were crisscrossed with boiling waves from fast boats, driven by intent anglers.