After the regional high school science fair had ended on Saturday afternoon, two youngsters approached sophomore Eli Hanschka, who had just taken home the event’s top prize, grand overall winner, for his engineering entry, Wave Energy: Harnessing the Power of Waves.

The Martha's Vineyard Ice Arena will be bustling this weekend with the start of the 16th Annual Fairleigh S. Dickinson Tournament on Saturday. The tournament, held in honor of arena benefactor Farleigh Dickinson, spotlights the Vineyarders and visiting Westwood, Weston and Lynnfield.

Community action and regional cooperation will be critical as the Island tackles new solutions to an old problem: affordable housing. This was the consensus among community leaders who gathered at the Oak Bluffs Library Wednesday night to hear a presentation on the first draft of the Housing Needs Assessment Study.

There are consistent problems when it comes to housing needs on the Vineyard: an affordability gap, caused by high housing prices in a largely seasonal community paired with low wages, has long made it hard for year-round residents to rent or own housing on the Island.

It was the scanner call heard around the Vineyard on Sunday afternoon: a horse in West Tisbury had fallen into a frozen pond. And more than a dozen volunteers from across the Island responded. A day after a large blizzard left a foot of snow in its wake, the meadow in Deep Bottom Pond was a sheet of white. There was no noticeable difference between the manmade pond and the meadow.

They come for the sun, the sand, the drama and romance, to grapple with life and grab hold of it against the backdrop of beachfront idyll. Such are the lives of twenty-somethings in the fleeting days of a Vineyard summer.

At least, that’s what a new reality show may have you believe.