News
Aliyah Breanna Bennett, the first baby born on Martha’s Vineyard in the new year, was delivered at 2:11 a.m. on Jan. 4 to parents Marva Henry and Donovan Bennett of Edgartown. Aliyah weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces and measured 20 inches. She joins sisters Monique and Donamar and brother Andre.
Services will be held this week for Arthur B. Dickson of Vineyard Haven, who died Sunday, Jan. 1, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. He was 88 and was the husband of Priscilla (West) Dickson.
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum is hosting two agricultural fair photo collection days to help with a new book being created by Susan Klein and Alan Brigish. The authors are on a quest to find a variety of images taken at the fair over the years for inclusion in the upcoming book. Photos will be scanned and returned immediately.
The collection days will be held on Friday, Jan. 6, from noon to 1 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. and again on Saturday, Jan. 7, from noon to 3 p.m. Both dates take place at 59 School street in Edgartown.
Volunteers at this year’s Christmas Bird Count spotted 119 species, according to Gazette bird columnist Susan Whiting, a cocompiler of the annual event on the Island. Though the species count was similar to recent years, the number of individual birds spotted, 21,730, was lower than in most counts of late. In 2010, only 15,926 individual birds were counted, due to few participant, but in 2009 32,114 individual birds were recorded. In 2008, that number was nearly 83,000.
An all-Island fire investigation is underway to determine the cause of a blaze that gutted a two-story Oak Bluffs home Sunday afternoon and sent up billows of dark smoke that could be seen for miles.
Oak Bluffs responders were called to 17 Spruce Avenue just before 3 p.m. Units from Edgartown and Tisbury arrived later to provide manpower backup and additional pumper engines. Once the fire was contained, work began on salvaging the home and quelling hot spots within. Teams were still on the scene three hours later.
Calling all ye wranglers of words, soothsayers of speech, and liberators of lobotomized lazy language: West Tisbury wants you.
Nominations for the next poet laureate of West Tisbury will be accepted from Jan. 3 to Feb. 1. Forms are available at the library and require the nominator’s name and contact information along with the nominee’s name and contact information.