Ms. Wildanger Joins Firm

Elexis Wildanger of Oak Bluffs has joined Island Real Estate. A native of the Island, she brings with her three years of experience in the real estate industry. She is handling both sales and rentals.

Learning the Ropes

Training young men and women in maritime skills would seem to be a natural and logical endeavor on an Island seven miles out to sea.

Yet while the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School has offered courses in culinary arts, horticulture, automobile service and repair and carpentry, the school has not offered comparable maritime courses.

Hello, June

Gardening expert and author C.L. Fornari will launch her new book, A Garden Lover’s Martha’s Vineyard, with a wine and cheese signing reception open to all on Thursday, June 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury. Gazette readers can get a taste of the full-color book — which features Island gardens large and small, from formal layouts in Edgartown to Victorian-inspired gardens in Oak Bluffs to casual up-Island gardens — from the excerpt below, about a Chilmark couple growing a vineyard on the Vineyard.

Welcome. We’re here today to get approval to leave this place. To be told that we’re done, al fin, la fine. But if we were to place this summer, right here, on a timeline of the things that our class will create, the ideas that our class will manifest, the places that our class will go, you would find that we, the class of 2008, are not done.

First of all, welcome families and friends. Second, congratulations class of 2008. And third, I love you. My fellow graduates, we have been so fortunate in knowing each other. We have spent the last four years watching each other excel at what we love, whether it is academics, theatre, the school newspaper, sports or music. You all amaze me with your individual talents and leave me in awe at the thought that the next four years will only include two of you. I want to take this opportunity to let you all know how irreplaceable you and our Island are.

When I sat down to write this graduation speech, I did what any child of the nineties would do in my situation — I went on Google. I typed “best graduation speeches ever” into the search tab and spent the next two hours watching low-quality YouTube videos of commencement speeches by Steve Jobs, Will Ferrell and other people I have nothing in common with.

Lecture on Spirituals

The Vineyard Haven Public Library hosts James Thomas, founding president of the U.S. Slave Song Project, to speak on the history and interpretation of spirituals, on Tuesday, June 10, at 6:30 p.m.

Painter, illustrator and landscape historian Diane Nicholls returns to Polly Hill Arboretum this week wth her popular workshop series Observing and Drawing the Landscape. Participants will learn art techniques to record observations of the natural landscape, in weekly Wednesday sessions from 1 to 4 p.m. Drawing lessons will include perspective, sketching and developing a “personal shorthand.” Ms. Nicholls will also present methods for keeping a daily sketchbook.

The road leading into Flat Point Farm in West Tisbury is surrounded by hay fields and on Friday afternoon the late-day sun brushed their tops in shades of gold.

In one hand, Doug Brush, 26, held a cold beer — it was 5 p.m., after all. In the other he held a hammer. With him was his business partner, Jeff Munroe, 28. Together, they were finishing a self-designed movable pen for their 226 rock cornish-cross baby chicks, which arrived in the Vineyard Haven post office the day before.