For years, Brock and Hope Callen handed out the Walter Cronkite award to individuals who helped Sail Martha’s Vineyard fulfill its mission. This year, the organization handed it to them.

Brock and Hope Callen, longtime employees and supporters of Sail Martha’s Vineyard, will receive this year’s Walter Cronkite Award.

Steve Ewing, dock builder, conservationist and Edgartown poet laureate is this year’s recipient of the Walter Cronkite award.

Guests gathered for the fifth annual Walter Cronkite awards ceremony and reception on Tuesday, beneath an ivory tent on the front lawn of Karen and David Brush’s Edgartown home.

The struggle to understand the role of oceans in sustaining life is the theme Tuesday during the Walter Cronkite awards ceremony.

Walter Cronkite left a legacy that travels beyond the shores of the Vineyard, and it continues with the fifth annual Walter Cronkite Awards Ceremony and Reception on Tuesday, August 5, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Acclaimed TV reporter and author Charlayne Hunter-Gault will be presented with the Stone Soup Leadership Institute’s 2012 Walter Cronkite Award on August 2.

Ms. Hunter-Gault, a part-time resident of the Island, has been a TV reporter for CNN and The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and is author of the new book, To The Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement.

Veteran journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Vineyard youth Shavanae Anderson are the recipients of the Stone Soup Leadership Institute’s 2012 Walter Cronkite Award. The awards, given to those who use the power of the media to build a more educated and sustainable world, were presented at a ceremony at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown on August 2.

Ms. Hunter-Gault, who was unable to attend the ceremony, commented in a prepared speech on the meaning of the award and the man for whom it was named.

Sail Martha’s Vineyard will give its first Walter Cronkite Award, in the memory of its staunch supporter and honorary chairman who died last July, to the artist Ray Ellis.

The award will be made at Sail MV’s annual Seafood Buffet and Auction at Tisbury Wharf on Saturday, July 10.

“Walter Cronkite might not have wanted this fuss made over him,” Peggy Schwier, president of the Sail MV board, said in a statement, “but he certainly would have approved of Ray Ellis as the first person to receive this award.

Matthew Stackpole has ridden the crest of so many successful Island endeavors for so long, it should be no surprise that on Saturday, July 9, he will receive a coveted Island award. Mr. Stackpole is the recipient of the second Walter Cronkite Award; he will be honored at the 20th annual Seafood Buffet and Auction, a fund-raiser for Sail Martha’s Vineyard at Tisbury Wharf.