A retrospective exhibition of Susan Sellers’s plein air works opens this Sunday, April 20, with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. at Featherstone Center for the Arts.

Ms. Sellers’s show of nearly 30 pieces, primarily oils with a few pastels and giclées, reflects the Vineyard. The gas pump on North Road, an abandoned Chilmark tractor, a weathered house — such things inspire Ms. Sellers and imbue her art with a timelessness.

Although Tuesday’s boys’ lacrosse game between the Vineyarders and the Whalers from Nantucket had all the makings of a classic barn burner between two inter-Island rivals, the game in the end provided plenty of smoke but little fire.

A longtime West Tisbury resident has donated $12,000 to support and encourage female farmers on the Vineyard.

A documentary film on women in agriculture and a panel discussion which followed inspired Kenneth Malcolm Jones, a machinist and founder of the nonprofit organization Up the River Endeavors, to give the money.

The event, entitled Ladies of the Land, was part of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival which took place in Chilmark last month.

Paul Mahoney, a nurseryman for 30 years and the owner of Jardin Mahoney in Oak Bluffs, spoke at a recent meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club on the topic of Sustainable Plants in the Landscape.

Mr. Mahoney explained that the word sustainable, when used in gardening, has an open definition, but he bases it on three general concepts: a growing public enthusiasm for native plants, conservation of wildlife habitat, and a movement away from the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides.

Student Honored

Michelle Holmberg, a senior at Fairfield University and a resident of Oak Bluffs, is scheduled for induction April 13 into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society.

The daughter of Donna and Warren Holmberg and a graduate of Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, she is majoring in psychology in the college of arts and sciences at Fairfield.

Starting July 8, the newest crop of low-numbered Massachusetts license plates will be on the auction block when Cape Cod and Islands plates numbered 1 through 999 finally become available. 

The Cape and Islands plates, which have been in circulation since 1995, carry imagery of Nauset Light in Eastham, along with the cliffs of Siasconset in Nantucket and Gay Head on the Vineyard.

The gibbous moon moves up beside the brightly ringed planet Saturn on Monday and Tuesday evenings. The two are in the zodiacal constellation Leo. The bright star Regulus is nearby.

Dean’s List

Hans Buder, the son of Lynn and Karl Buder of Vineyard Haven, was named to the dean’s list with distinction at Duke University in Durham, N.C. for the fall semester of 2007.

At its April meeting, the Up-Island Regional School Committee voted to use recently received impact aid totaling $12,743 to reduce the assessment of the member town of Aquinnah.

Because tribal housing is in Aquinnah, the committee decided that that town should reap the benefit from the district’s receipt of the aid. The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is based in that town.

Piper Arrives

Lauren and George Oskan of West Tisbury announce the birth of a daughter, Piper Lydia Oskan, born on April 8 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Piper is also welcomed by big sister Ella. Piper weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce at birth.