The way golf enthusiasts talk about the Island’s newest course — which officially opened just over a week ago off Edgartown-West Tisbury Road in Edgartown — you expect to see guys walking around the clubhouse wearing kilts.

Well, don’t worry. The course at the Vineyard Golf Club may be unforgiving Scottish-inspired design, but the garb is just the kind of pastel microfiber blends you’ll find on most any golf course in the country.

Make that private course. A membership costs about $300,000.

Seventh and eighth graders on the Island are consuming alcohol,
smoking marijuana and having sex at rates far higher than middle
schoolers from two years ago.

Vineyard Joins Cape Community in Compact to Offer Mutual Aid in
Disaster Conditions

By MANDY LOCKE

Martha's Vineyard emergency rescue crews will no longer be
left to battle disasters alone.

A simple phone call from an Island fire chief mobilizes additional
manpower and equipment to the Island - thanks to a mutual aid
agreement finalized this spring among Vineyard fire departments and
emergency responders on Cape Cod.

The Vineyard could see as many as 7,032 more homes on its 17,475
remaining acres of developable land, officials from the state Executive
Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) said at an Island forum held
Thursday night.

"That's a relatively short time frame to be faced with
some tough choices," said Christian Jacqz, director of
Massachusetts Geographic Information System, in a presentation to Island
officials at the Howes House in West Tisbury.

State Official Hit on New Bedford Stand

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

A prominent Boston attorney who represents the Steamship Authority
fired back yesterday at the state attorney general for climbing into bed
with the city of New Bedford in the latest political gambit around the
public boat line that is the lifeline to the two Islands.

Island Bids Farewell to Graduating Class of 2002

Commencement Exercises Pay Tribute to Largest Graduate Class in
History

By ALEXIS TONTI

For four years they studied, turned in projects and papers, took too
many tests to count. For two weeks they waited, finals over, state
tournaments played out, summer jobs begun. For several days they
practiced, the marching, the seating, the singing.

Suspicions that tularemia has made a comeback on the Vineyard for
the third summer in a row have prompted a series of new health
advisories aimed at the group of people at highest risk for the disease
- landscapers.

State Attorney General Urges New Bedford Vote in Political War Over
SSA

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

The Massachusetts Attorney General touched off a fresh storm of
politics on Beacon Hill this week when he sided with the city of New
Bedford in the war among state legislators over a bill to restructure
the Steamship Authority.

Public Transit System Poised for Season

By MARCUS TONTI

The bus speaks.

"Card not valid," says a computerized voice to a
boarding passenger who doesn't insert his bus pass into the
farebox properly. But the driver quickly lends a hand, and the Route 1
bus is on its way from Edgartown to Vineyard Haven.

The keepers of Vineyard history are leaving the heart of the whaling community for a new home up-Island.

The Martha's Vineyard Historical Society this week announced the signing of a purchase and sale agreement for the Littlefield family's Scarecrow Farm, 25 acres tucked between the Agricultural Hall and Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury.

The decision to abandon much of their campus on School street and leave Edgartown did not come easily for a 10-member board of directors that spent the last year assessing the society's current performance and future needs.