Prescribed Burn

Working in conjunction with Vineyard fire officials, The Martha’s Vineyard Prescribed Fire Partnership plans to conduct a prescribed burn today at the Long Point Wildlife Refuge in West Tisbury. Smoke may be visible above the south coast of the Vineyard, near the Tisbury Great Pond in West Tisbury.

Welcome, Madelyn

Clare and Jeffrey Crowell of Edgartown announce the birth of a daughter, Madelyn Alice, born on April 10, 2009, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Madelyn weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces at birth.

The Vineyard Gazette office will be closed on Monday in observance of the state holiday which commemorates the battle of Lexington and Concord.

Sail Martha’s Vineyard

Welcomes Seasonal Youth

Thomas Edison captured the first Hawaiian surfing footage in 1906, but surfing films became part of surfing culture in the the 1960s and ’70s, when classic surfing films used to tour the country. Now California filmmaker Thomas Campbell (The Seedling, Sprout) carries on the tradition, eschewing video to shoot his features in beautifully rich 16 mm film. His latest, The Present, will screen on Martha’s Vineyard for one night only, on Sunday, April 26, at 7 p.m. at the Capawock Theatre in Vineyard Haven.

Ordnance Cleanup

A project to remove old military ordnance at South Beach in Edgartown and Cape Pogue Wildlife Refuge on Chappaquiddick gets under way next week and continues through the month of May.

Cape Pogue was used as a practice target bombing site in the 1940s during the war years. South Beach was also used for military training exercises and was the site of a gunnery range. Buried ordnance has surfaced on the beaches as a result of naturally occurring erosion.