Ending a Quick Search, School District Names Interim Principals for
Year Ahead

By CHRIS BURRELL

Three consecutive days of interviews this week yielded two new
principals up-Island: Michael Halt will take over at the West Tisbury
School, and Diane Gandy becomes principal at the Chilmark School.

Mr. Halt, 39, will leave his post as vice-principal at the
Martha's Vineyard Regional High School to accept the interim
principalship in West Tisbury.

Lynn C. Murphy has reason to celebrate this Labor Day weekend. He has marked a business anniversary few single proprietors ever reach: He has operated Menemsha Marine Repair for half a century now.

They decided almost three years ago that replacing a yellow blinker
beacon with a roundabout was the safest solution for a notoriously
dangerous intersection, but just weeks before hiring an engineer to
design it, Oak Bluffs selectmen are thinking it over - one more
time.

Labor Day's Departures Remind Us of the Pleasures that
Attracted Them

By C.K. WOLFSON

It's an Us and Them question: How was your Vineyard summer?

For most of the working Us, it's an anthem of impatience, of
too slow, too long lines and cars. It is a fast tempo fugue in a world
that seems to be waltzing; too many demands and not enough time.

This Season, Behind the Retail Counter, Multiple Languages (and Some
Confusion)

By CHRIS BURRELL

Rafata Jabri, a Jordanian-born pastry chef in Oak Bluffs, knows all
about turning flour, butter, sugar and eggs into delectable treats, but
some other ingredients in the bakery are driving him a little crazy
- a polyglot of Portuguese, Czech, Bulgarian and even Scottish
brogues.

They are the languages and accents heard from his work force at
Martha's Vineyard Gourmet Cafe and Bakery in downtown Oak Bluffs.

Putting aside for the moment concerns about potential costs involved
in expanding their century-old library, Edgartown residents yesterday
voted overwhelmingly in favor of purchasing an adjacent property.

Chilmark School Work Nears Completion, But First Days' Classes
Will Be Elsewhere

JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

Repairs at the Chilmark School will not be completed in time for
opening day, and yesterday school and town leaders were busy with
last-minute arrangements for an alternative site for the children to
attend school.

Opening day is Thursday for all five elementary schools on the
Vineyard.

Tisbury Grudge on Police Pay Will Get New Hearing at SSA

By ALEXIS TONTI

A muddled Steamship Authority policy remained in the spotlight over
the weekend, as the Vineyard boat line governor took a position in the
debate about payments by the SSA for police details in the port towns.

His Game of Darts Interrupted; A Night of Theatre Is Saved

By TOM DUNLOP

Fred Natusch of Vineyard Haven was playing darts at the home of a
friend on Lake Tashmoo on Friday evening when the call came in from the
Vineyard Playhouse. It was climbing up toward 8 o'clock, and the
theatre was dark. Not in the showbiz sense of dark, as in there's
no production scheduled here tonight, but in the sense of there would be
a production scheduled here tonight, but the lights aren't
working.

Six Island educators are among the nine finalists now vying for the
interim principal jobs in both the West Tisbury and Chilmark schools.

The high-speed search for school leaders comes less than a month
after two principals in the Up-Island district - Elaine Pace and
Carlos Colley - handed in their resignations after each serving
three years on the job.