Reverend Cathlin Baker and Bill Eville have been selected as the recipients of our 42nd Creative Living Award. The award is made in recognition of their contributions to the quality of Vineyard life. 

Cathlin is the minister at First Congregational Church of West Tisbury. She is the church’s 50^th minister and its first female leader. With roots in community organizing, Cathlin’s greatest passion is to bring people together in teams at church and into a coordinated force for change in the community. For as long as she can remember, she has held a vision of a community, nation and world at peace, where dignity and human rights are upheld, creation is honored, and dreams thrive. This vision permeates all that she does. On-Island and in cities in New York and Florida, Cathlin has taken an active role in addressing critical issues such as homelessness, food security, and human rights. She has served on the boards of Harbor Homes and leads the All-Island Clergy Association. 

Bill Eville is the editor of the Vineyard Gazette, which he began reading as soon as he learned how to read. He spent every summer of his life on the Vineyard, living with his grandparents on Pennacook Avenue in Oak Bluffs. His family on his mother’s side, the Hardings, first arrived on the Island in the 1700s. They were whalers and later shopkeepers on Circuit Avenue. His great-grandfather moved off-Island to find work, and so when Bill and Cathlin moved back to the Vineyard, it was a full-circle movement.

Bill’s memoir Washed Ashore was published in 2023. For over a decade, he was also the author of The Notebook, a weekly essay that was part of the Vineyard Gazette’s email newsletters. His work at the Gazette allows him to help tell the ever-evolving story of the Vineyard, something he feels honored and humbled to do each week.

Cathlin and Bill became full-time, year-round Islanders in 2008, when their son Hardy was four and Eirene – known as Pickle – was six months old. The couple views their collective work as community building. Through the newspaper and the church, they strengthen communal bonds by amplifying unheard voices, celebrate local efforts, and do the daily, heavy lifting of relationship building. Their work is very much in the public eye as they hold leadership in the community and as they share from personal experience through sermons and essays. Together with their children, they form a team, working on relentless weekly deadlines — the Gazette on Thursdays and church on Sundays — and committing to each other’s labors of love.

The designation has become an annual celebration of creativity, innovation, and community since 1983. The award was created to honor Ruth Bogan who “loved beauty, who loved the Vineyard and who believed ‘anyone can do anything.” 

A celebration of Cathlin and Bill will be held in the Fall; event details will be available in September. For more information, contact Program Manager .