Colonel Dinah F. Olagbegi stepped off the Island Home Monday afternoon to the whine of sirens. Islanders gathered to greet her as a light rain fell.
Island fire and police vehicles sounded a salute to her and flashed emergency lights. At the end of the ramp, members of Sea Coast Defence Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution regent Doris L Clark, treasurer Cindy Krauss, chaplain Jane Drew, Donna Honig, Irene Resendes, Pat Tyra, and Bonnie Belmonte greeted the colonel they had invited to the Vineyard. VFW commander Rick Bernard and quartermaster Peter Herrmann, as well as David Berube, an Air Force chaplain and pastor at the Federated Church in Edgartown, also greeted Olagbegi.
Olagbegi, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, is the fourth member of the military the Vineyard’s Daughters of the American Revolution have presented with an all-Island-expenses-paid vacation. After embracing Clark and meeting the folks gathered at the ramp, the colonel towed her luggage up to Tisbury’s screaming ladder truck, and waved to the volunteer firefighters and police officers who came to honor her.
At the request of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Island businesses stepped up to facilitate and enhance Olagbegi’s time on Island, which includes everything from a Jeep rental by Sun ’n’ Fun, a house rental in Chilmark by Flanders Real Estate, and dozens of gift certificates from businesses all over the Island for everything from food to workouts, to a fishing trip.
