Writer, artist, scholar, educator and neighbor — Della Hardman was warmly remembered Saturday for her many contributions to the Vineyard on the annual day that bears her name and has been celebrated since 2005.
This weekend marks the 10th Della Hardman Day, which begins Friday with the opening of a Featherstone exhibition. In honor of the milestone anniversary, Mrs. Hardman’s students are returning to the Island.
The following are the three winning essays in the annual Della Hardman writing contest for high school students.
Oak Bluffs selectman Walter Vail called it a perfect Vineyard day. Kites hung in the clear blue sky over Ocean Park and a light breeze blew in off Nantucket Sound on Saturday. A crowd had gathered beneath a peaked tent to celebrate the memory of Della Hardman, a leader in the Island African American community and in the Island community as a whole.
In 2002 Della Hardman told the Vineyard Gazette: “When I retired I could have stayed in West Virginia, or gone wherever, somewhere, anywhere, but I chose to come to Martha’s Vineyard. And I didn’t plan to come and sit. I planned to be involved.
The following essays were the top three winners in the annual Della Hardman Day essay contest for students at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. The theme this year was: “Does entertainment such as video games, TV, movies and social media, have the capacity to ‘ruin’ society, as Neal Gabler suggested in his book Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.”
It takes just one person to inspire a community. That is the legacy of the late Della Brown Hardman, educator, artist, writer, mother and friend. As residents and visitors in Oak Bluffs have witnessed since Della’s death in 2005, an inspired community can keep alive such a legacy through continued effort.
The annual Della Hardman Day celebration of the arts is tomorrow in Ocean Park. This will be the eighth year that a neighborhood, town and Island gather to celebrate art and life, Della-style.
