In recent news, the Marblehead school system now has a new lead nurse. They voted anonymously through the School Committee to approve of the hire of Margarita Perlin. The vote was 4-0 at the meeting on Thursday, September 18th. Perlin has been a resident of Swampscott for 15 years and she is leaving her position as lead nurse in the Chelsea schools. She will start with Marblehead on September 29th.

Perlin immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1994. As she explained about the transition, “The communities are completely different, but people are people. They all have health issues.”

Marblehead is tipping its hat to Navy Seaman Abigail D. Leblanc, daughter of Daniel T. and Joanne M. Leblanc of Marblehead. She recently completed US Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois.

Leblanc is a 2014 graduate of Marblehead High School. During the eight week program that she just completed, she completed classroom study on naval customs, first aid, firefighting, water safety and survival and shipboard and aircraft safety.

The biggest event of the boot camp was “Battle Stations.” This gave recruits the skill to succeed in the fleet.

Crosby’s Marketplace wants to remind parents and students of their Register Tapes for Education program. Here is how the program works. Customers collect their grocery receipts from Crosby’s Marketplace and then give the receipts to their school. When they deposit the receipts into the RTFE program, the receipts are then converted into points and redeemed for free equipment and supplies from the program catalog.

The catalog has over 3000 items including pens, pencils, computers, sports equipment and more.

As Jim Crosby, the president of the Crosby’s Marketplace, explained, “We are proud to participate in this program to help provide much-needed educational equipment that goes into the classrooms of our customers’ children. This program is a way of enhancing the education of our youth and thanking our customers for their shopping loyalty.”

During last school year, the Crosby’s Marketplace stores raised over $5500 for nine local schools through this program. The 2014-2015 program started on September 1. For more information about the program, people can call 978-745-4272.

If you’ve always wanted to know more about the King Hooper Mansion, now is the time to learn. The Marblehead Arts Association will have a talk on Tuesday, September 9th at 7pm in the Hooper Mansion’s third-floor ballroom gallery with historian and author Robert Booth Jr. The talk will be titled “The King and the Commoners: Robert Booth’s Mansion and its Owners Over the Years.” The new information relates to the mansion’s inception and to its early history.

There will be a reception immediately after the talk. Admission is free and with a suggested donation of $5 for members of the MAA and $10 for non-members.

Booth, who was raised in Marblehead and is a current resident, has authored the award-winning book “Death of an Empire: The Rise and Murderous Fall of Salem, America’s Richest City,” and the forthcoming book, “Mad for Glory.”

Don’t miss the Marblehead Farmers Market this Saturday, August 30th. It will start at 9 am and go until noon behind the Veterans Middle School. Some of the great things to look for include new produce: plums, apples, winter squash, corn, tomatoes, blueberries and more.

Craft vendors will also be selling their wares including the Le Bistro restaurant with Mediterranean food, Jan and John Cohen with note cards and calendars, Jennifer Hickman with candles, Robin Foudray with jewelry and Sally Marcy with arm warmers.

There will be performances by Teresa Coelho from Music Together of Marblehead, doing participatory children’s music.

The market will be held rain or shine though Nov. 22 so if you miss it, you’ll have another chances.

If you’ve never been to the Marblehead Light, then it’s high time that you learned a bit about your area’s history. The light house is on Marblehead Neck in Essex County and is a structure that replaced the original 1835 brick and wood tower in 1895. It is actually the only tower of its type in New England and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

As it explains on Wikipedia, “In August 1831, the townspeople of Marblehead requested that a lighthouse be built at the entrance to the harbour. Congress granted the wish and a 23 foot (7m) high tower was built in 1835 and commissioned on October 10, 1835.^[3] This tower had an array of ten whale oil burning lamps inside an octagonal lantern.

In 1857, the old lamp system was replaced by a sixth order Fresnel lens and reflectors. Despite the upgrade and work on the tower and associated keepers’ house, the tower itself was in a poor condition and by 1893 a new light was requested. The new light was completed in 1895 at a cost of $8,786, the cost being much reduced by using a skeletal frame rather than rebuilding the old tower.”

Learn more about the light tower and more about Marblehead history today.