Eugene Richard Samuelson, a founder of the Wednesday Group of plein-air painters here, died of complications of diabetes at home in Amagansett on Feb. 15. He was 85.

Robert Emmett Ginna Jr., a reporter, editor, filmmaker, and teacher, died at home in Sag Harbor on March 3 at the age of 99. Twenty-five years earlier, when he was 74, he strapped on a 38-pound rucksack and set off to walk the length of Ireland. The journey became a book, “The Irish Way: A Walk Through Ireland’s Past and Present.” Illustrated with his own sketches, it was just one chapter in a lifetime of adventuring in words and images, working in art museums, magazine and book publishing, television, and film.

When most people are focused on winter school sports like basketball and volleyball, something else is going on as well: the Special Olympics. 

“A passionate gardener, baker, sailor, animal lover and advocate,” Nancy S. Cardoso “filled her life with reminders of the things she loved — nature, art, and speaking the truth,” according to those who knew her. She died on Feb. 27 at home in Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

As school superintendents from around the East End discuss regionalization efforts, plans are in the works for a new shared special education program developed by the East Hampton, Amagansett, Springs, and Montauk Schools that will operate out of the Springs Youth Association building on the Springs campus starting in September. 

Sharing stories of challenges faced communicating with school staff, Spanish-speaking parents have asked the Sag Harbor School Board to add more bilingual staff.

A public hearing on an East Hampton Town proposal to alter the calculation that governs the maximum size of a house — going from a gross floor area of 10 percent of a lot size plus 1,600 square feet down to 7 percent of the lot size plus 1,500 square feet — was replete with buzzwords: community, resources, traffic, McMansion, greed, and sliding scales. Building professionals and concerned citizens stuffed Town Hall past capacity to offer mostly educated comments. 

The surprising news in an update on wildfire readiness in East Hampton Town at Tuesday’s town board meeting was that trees felled by the southern pine beetle are not top of mind for fire experts who are assessing the town’s fire risk.