The East Hampton School District’s athletic director reported this week that his petition to Section XI that eight of East Hampton High’s teams play closer to home has been approved.

“I think this is a really important step that we’re making today, where we finally, as a town, will assert control over an airport that we own but had no ability to regulate,” East Hampton Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said after the town board’s vote on Thursday to file the appropriate forms with the F.A.A. to deactivate the airport.

There’s a room on the lower level of the Suffolk County Historical Society building that holds an artifact that was once revered in local history. On display here is an object made out of cloth, stitched by hand, and preserved, tightly pressed under glass. It measures 41.5 inches by 28.5 inches and consists of 13 white six-pointed stars on a blue canton, with seven bars of red and six white. It’s constructed out of homespun, a worsted wool, with the stars made out of cotton muslin. It is known as the Hulbert flag because it was found stashed in the rafters of a Bridgehampton barn that was owned long ago by a man named John Hulbert.