The Martha’s Vineyard Horse Council recognized riders at its annual awards banquet, held Sunday, Dec. 5 at the Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown.

In the hunter division, the Walk/Trot champion was Isabelle Littlefield, and reserve champion Isabella Thorpe.

The Walk/Trot/Canter champion was Ciara Seccombe.

The hunter champion in Short Stirrup Equitation was Mia Arenburg, and the reserve champion was Maddy Alley.

Dean’s List

Justin Kane, of Edgartown, has been named to the dean’s list at Suffolk University in Boston. He is the son of Kimberly and Richard Kane.

The 12-foot-long storefront sign for Edgartown Hardware came down on Tuesday afternoon. A small group assembled in front of the store to witness the retirement of the sign on a quiet midwinter day when few people were out and about on Main street. Work crews moving boxes from the old store into a waiting truck stopped and looked up as the sign came down.

Please Adopt Us

The holidays have come and gone and our most fervent wish for 2011 is for empty cages! It’s not because we don’t love all the animals, but we do want them to find homes. So we ask everyone who loves animals to come by the shelter and see what a wonderful, sweet group of cats we have just waiting to be adopted.

As political fault lines continue to undermine the struggling Edgartown library rebuilding project, the town selectmen have called a special meeting for Monday afternoon to address the problems.

The meeting will be held at 3:30 p.m. prior to the weekly selectmen’s meeting.

“This committee has been making bad decisions for six years,” declared Edgartown selectman Michael Donaroma, also a member of the library building committee, following a tense meeting with elected library trustees on Tuesday night.

By virtue of his job, Tisbury ambulance coordinator Jeff Pratt is something of an expert on the hazards of winter.

The worst, he says, is when snow falls and is not cleared before the temperature falls, turning it to ice.

“Once or twice every single winter I can ever remember, we get a period where soft, wet snow turns to ice and the temperature doesn’t warm for many days,” he said. “Then there are so many falls.”

A chimney fire on Pennywise Path in Edgartown last Tuesday destroyed a bedroom and has forced a family out of their home for the next month. The fire broke out in between the chimney and wall of Lisa and Herb Tilton’s home around 3 a.m., engulfing the house in smoke.

The American Red Cross, Cape Cod and Islands chapter, will hold an Adult CPR/AED and First Aid class on Jan. 8 at the YMCA.

The Adult CPR/AED portion will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and costs $55. The first aid class portion of the class will then continue until 3:30 p.m. Cost for both the CPR/AED and first aid is $65.

Stela Arrives

Ena Thulin and Plamen Dunchev of West Tisbury announce the birth of a daughter, Stela Plamenova Duncheva, born on Jan. 1, 2011, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Stela weighed 7 pounds at birth.

West Tisbury Police

The West Tisbury police station planning and siting committee will hold a public meeting to present its work so far and to get public reaction to the sites and building needs identified for a new police station.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Jan. 11 at the Howes House in West Tisbury.

The committee will make a presentation and then take questions and record comments which will be included in their deliberations and final report which will be sent to the selectmen in early February.