A six-week yoga pilot program aimed to expose students from kindergarten to eighth grade launched this month at the West Tisbury School. Students and teachers will be surveyed along the way to evaluate the new project.

The Martha's Vineyard Hospital's annual health fair was on March 15. The event brought out hundreds of people and promoted healthy living by connecting the community with the hospital.

Brothers Greg and Dan Martino plan to grow 50,000 oysters per year in bottom cages off of Eastville Beach in Oak Bluffs as early as next spring. Oak Bluffs selectmen gave preliminary approval as long as the Martino brothers' equipment does not prevent boats from passing through the area.

The proposed purchase of the Vineyard Nursing Association by Cape Cod Health Care did not go through as planned, the Gazette learned today. 

The red planet Mars is only a few weeks away from opposition and its brightness can not be missed. The red planet glows above the southeastern horizon two hours after sunset. Mars hasn’t been this bright in almost two years. Once Mars rises higher in the southeast, later in the evening, there is no mistaking its reddish color and its brightness amid the field of fainter stars. Mars nearly doubles in size and brightness this month.

Donald Robert Mills, known to all as Donnie, died March 13, 2014 in the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Donnie was born March 1, 1954 in Providence, R.I. to Dr. Donald R. Mills and Esther Mills of Edgartown. He graduated from the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, class of 1972, and later from Stockbridge School of Agriculture.

Twelve-year-old Spencer Pogue won first place at the all-Island spelling bee on March 14. He will compete in May against the country's best spellers.

For the second year in a row, at least three Island towns are facing an election season without a single contested race. Ballots are set for Chilmark, Edgartown and West Tisbury without any candidates facing opposition — in fact, some positions are lacking any candidates at all.

Louis S. Larsen, one of the last commercial fishermen on the Island, died March 11 at age 88. He was born Nov. 27, 1925 in Menemsha, the child of Norwegian immigrants with deep fishing roots.

The Island’s only intensive outpatient substance abuse program, New Paths Recovery, was inaugurated with a five-year grant from the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital in the summer of 2010. That grant is set to expire in 10 months.