Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School junior Jeremy Alley-Tarter had exactly one week atop the record books for the school cross-country team.

Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas and Cy Young made headlines 150 years ago, and last week those headlines were uncovered when the shingles came off the front of the Littlefield house in West Tisbury.

Newspapers dating to the mid 19th century were discovered on the State Road home by Island builder Tucker Hubbell when he and his crew removed the front porch of the house for a renovation project. Mr. Hubbell estimated the last time the 1844 house had been shingled was around 1910, when newspapers were commonly used to help insulate and prevent wind from blowing through the walls.

“Tikkun olam” is a Hebrew phrase meaning to repair or heal the world. On Wednesday, a couple of dozen students from the Hebrew School at Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven did their part to make that a reality. They loaded 128 bags of nonperishable food into vehicles to be transported to the Island Food Pantry located a few blocks away at Christ United Methodist Church.

Down at the Menemsha docks on an early October evening, a regular is out casting into the harbor. He’s dressed for the occasion in red rubber boots and rain pants and a bright yellow rain jacket. His blue derby hat is decked with four pins — one with his derby number, two daily bluefish award pins, and one junior angler pin.

And of course five-year-old Grady Keefe of Menemsha is wearing his faded yellow life jacket.

There is always tough competition at the The Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby which these days attracts close to 3,000 fishermen. But amidst the awards and bragging rights there is also a tradition of generosity.