Tom Hodgson of Tiasquam road in West Tisbury once again reports the year’s first snowdrops, this time by e-mailing the news along with this photograph.

Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School principal Stephen Nixon announces the honor roll for the first quarter of the 2009-2010 academic year.

Grade 12 high honors: Marta Azzollini, Ashley Drake, Matthew Fisher, Shaelah Huntington, Dylan McCarthy, Leah Pachico, Tessa Permar, Hayley Pierce and Julie Pringle.

Grade 11 high honors: Molly Ciciora, Kristen Parece and Amelia Pennington.

After almost two years of escapes, complaints, hearings, appeals and ever mounting financial cost to the town of Tisbury, town administrator John Bugbee dares to hope that the long saga of the chicken-killing Huskies belonging to the Garde family may finally end today.

At a meeting early last week, the all-Island school committee agreed to move forward in pursuit of special legislation that would allow Island towns to form a trust agreement to cover post-retirement benefits for the school district.

“It makes more sense to do it together than to do it individually,” said Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss this week. The money reserved for the benefits is generally set aside in an account by each town and invested.

Committee members had questions about the process.

The Oak Bluffs water district has violated state drinking water standards for the second time in five months, although this time the contamination did not trigger an emergency boil-water order, as happened last September.

The West Tisbury planning board last week voted without dissent to endorse a new bylaw aimed at regulating the size and location of future wind turbines in town. The three-page bylaw was drafted by a special subcommittee and approved by the planning board last Monday.

The bylaw will now go to town voters at the annual town meeting in April. An earlier version of the wind bylaw was shelved at last year’s town meeting so the planning board could take more time to work on it.