In the last year and a half, about 16 youths (people 19 years old or younger) were admitted to Martha's Vineyard Hospital for attempted suicide, according to hospital data recently acquired by the Gazette. In the year-and-a-half prior to that, seven youths were admitted for attempted suicide.

Of the 16 attempted suicides by youths in this past year and a half, 14 occurred between January and May of this year.

Students Honored

Three Vineyard students were named to honor lists for the fall semester at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, N.H.

They are Eric Soikkeli and Kayla Mastromonaco of Vineyard Haven, who were named to the dean’s list, and Paige McCarthy of Vineyard Haven, who was named to the dean’s honors list.

DESIGNATION PITFALLS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Shareholders, Corporators

Approve Bank Merger

Shareholders of The Martha’s Vineyard Co-operative Bank and corporators of Dukes County Savings Bank have approved plans for the two institutions to merge, bank officials announced.

Abundant wind power, with no fuel cost, is destined to replace the most expensive source of electrical generation — and that is from oil-fueled power plants.

Allow me to explain. In New England, unlike the rest of the country, oil-generated electricity plays a large but diminishing role. Almost a quarter of the installed capacity of all power plants here use oil as fuel.

As the Chilmark shellfish department wraps up its first summer, efforts at spearheading restoration projects have been successful. Selectman Warren Doty, chairman of the board and liaison to the department, reported a low mortality rate among planted scallops and a very high production rate.

“It has been a very successful season,” he said.

To date, 100,000 scallop seed have been set to grow in an upweller, purchased by the town this spring and located in Menemsha, as well as in spat bags and pearl nets.

The Dragonfly Gallery, in conjunction with the Periwinkle Studio (diagonally across the street), is featuring a retrospective show of Virginia Reilly Gosselin’s art work spanning more than 50 years.

A graduate of Endicott College in 1956, she worked in the art department of newspapers and advertising agencies until she began freelancing for Stanley Home Products. From the early 1980s to the present, Ms. Reilly Gosselin has been creating her whimsical pen and inks as well as her expressive drawings and paintings. All will be on display, and most for sale.

In Oak Bluffs this week, great mounds of earth were being shifted, walls to turn back the sea were being built and beaches were being fortified and expanded.

And although there seemed to be something Biblical to it all, in reality all the moving of sand and building of walls was more routine then epic.

The construction crews at the tip of the North Bluff were working on a new seawall that is the first step in a larger plan to replace the bulkhead running from the parking lot to the Steamship Authority terminal.

A Dredge With Potential

A former summer visitor to Chilmark plans to appeal a recent Middlesex Superior Court decision which favors the Chilmark selectmen’s right to manage their harbor and essentially keep him from spending more than 14 days a summer at a slip.

Paul DeJesus, an aggrieved owner of a 70-foot Hatteras yacht, told the Gazette yesterday he will appeal the Hon. Dennis J. Curran’s decision.