Nearly 173 years after she first set sail, the Charles W. Morgan has survived to earn a new distinction. She is the last surviving whaling ship and this spring she sets sail once again.

New NStar undersea cable is expected to add redundancy to Vineyard power system and make service more reliable. The cable stretches 29,000 feet from Falmouth to West Chop.

Philip E. Campbell, former director of pupil services in the Auburn schools, took over as the new director for student support services in November. Islandwide, 450 students receive special education services.

An overnight coastal blizzard swept up the East Coast late Tuesday forcing schools, businesses and government offices to close for a day in the middle of the week. Then the thermometer plunged to single digits.

Edgartown rejected three bids for work on the Katama Farm Barn. The lowest bid came in at $57,600, the next lowest bid was $89,548 and the highest bid was $186,000.

Two Vineyard residents were arraigned on drug charges last week after a police investigation into the sale of prescription drugs.

Last November, a temporary stimulus to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) expired, leaving 480,000 Massachusetts residents with fewer funds to stretch throughout the month.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to enjoy winter at arm’s length. As reported in the last edition of the Gazette, there are approximately one hundred and sixty homeless people on the Vineyard.

These are the moors that tumble from our hilltop to the little shell and stone washed beach. Our golden dog, weaving a ribbon of orange silk through the beach plum and huckleberry bushes, scares to flight a family of quails and a berry nibbling gull.

The woman in her late 50s or early 60s who excused herself and wore a colorful, handcrafted felt hat was speaking to a woman in her 80s who had a bubbliness of someone half her age, wore what I can only describe as a bonnet, looked familiar to me and spoke audibly and loud enough for me to hear that Yvette Eastman had died at the age of 101.