Every school graduation is important. But the graduation taking place this Saturday, June 2, from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School is in a class of its own.

Tomorrow, the charter school will celebrate its first ever graduation. Four students make up the graduating class. Walker Blackwell, Elana Robinson-Lynch, Indaia Whitcombe and Sarah Maxner will receive diplomas and speak at the event. Thursday morning, the four students talked with the Gazette about the school and their lives.

Cruise Lines Sail for Vineyard

By MANDY LOCKE

Destination: Martha's Vineyard. That's the proclamation
this season for two new cruise line companies and this speaks to a
larger trend for the Vineyard.

Norwegian Cruise Lines will deliver 1,500 to 1,800 passengers to
Terry McCarthy's Dockside Marina in Oak Bluffs starting next
Friday. This wave of tourists will arrive every Friday through the
summer. Oak Bluffs will continue to host Regal Cruise Line throughout
the summer as well.

A small circle of senior managers at the Steamship Authority last
week quietly filed an application for some $2 million in federal grant
money to help launch an $8 million high-speed passenger ferry operation
between the Vineyard and New Bedford, the Gazette has learned.

A wrongful death lawsuit is expected to be filed next week in
connection with the car crash last March that claimed the life of Eric
MacLean, an 18-year-old high school senior who was thrown from a Jeep
driven by his friend and classmate, Seamus O'Brien.

Vineyard Haven Voters Decide June 12 on Successor to Edmond G.
Coogan

By JOSHUA SABATINI

On Tuesday, June 12, Tisbury voters will decide which of two
candidates, Cora Medeiros or Ray LaPorte, will fill the vacancy on the
board of selectmen resulting from the death of Edmond G. Coogan earlier
this year.

Mrs. Medeiros and Mr. LaPorte spoke with the Gazette in separate
interviews to discuss the race and the issues before the town.

A selling job. Pitching the fast ferry. This is the main melody
these days at the Steamship Authority, where management activities have
spun into overdrive on the ambitious new service model that has been
under discussion in all the port communities for the last five months.

Federal Agency Cites Packer Firm For Violations of Clean Air Act; Investigation Charges Release Of Tons of Toxic Pollutants

R.M. Packer Co., the 23-year-old gas and oil concern headquartered in Vineyard Haven, was cited by the federal Environmental Protection Agency this month for a long list of violations to the Clean Air Act.

If it seems the inventory of hair color products on Island drugstore and supermarket shelves is growing larger every year - well, it probably is. New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week shows that gray hair is the increasingly predominant theme in Dukes County, and for that matter all over Massachusetts, as the population grows older and the number of households with children begins to dwindle.

The Vineyard's outermost lighthouse is celebrating a birthday. The Cape Pogue Lighthouse on Chappaquiddick is 200 years old, and for most of those years it has stood as a constant and reliable sentinel for ships making passage across the sometimes treacherous waters of Nantucket Sound.

Officials Forecast Expanded Air Traffic

By JOSHUA SABATINI

The Martha's Vineyard Airport, with another summer season at
hand, is ready to handle the projected increase in air traffic and would
like to see even more.

Shortages in fuel supply are not expected this season. A new fuel
farm, with a capacity of 60,000 gallons, has recently begun operation.
Fuel trucks come to the Island by barge, empty their supply in the
farm's tanks, and trucks from the farm head out to fill up planes
on the paved strip.