To Save The Tower
That’s what former aviators Ken DeHoff and Scotty Scott of the Pacific Aviation Museum are trying to do with the historic Ford Island air field control tower. A fundraiser happens there Thursday
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be done.
“That’s our Eiffel Tower, our Empire State Building,” he says. “It’s nothing cheap. It’s nothing easy. We’re working on national historic buildings. We have requirements as to how we have to work on those, and how it has to look like and how you have to restore it. So you really have to go slow and make sure if you make a change to something, the community supports that change.”
Phase two includes Hangar 79, which will tell the story about World War II following the attack on Dec. 7 and will be designed to resemble the flight deck of an aircraft carrier conducting air operations. Phase three will display Hangar 54 and cover Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War and feature an F-14, F-15, F-86 and even a Russian Mig 15.
After three years in existence, attendance at the museum has been good. The turnstyles currently welcome about 550 visitors a day, and its popularity has led to a unique problem: How many is too many?
“It’s a constant battle between the curator and marketing,” says DeHoff. “The curator wants a place of contemplation, while marketing wants lines out the door. It’s a museum, but like libraries, you want to have an environment where you can feel the emotion, where you can read in peace, that you can reflect on the information you’ve got, whether it is a battle or an individual you are thinking about.”
The visitors are enough to keep the doors open, but not enough to expand the property in the manner the master plan calls for. It is for this reason the museum is hosting its third annual fundraiser Thursday. The evening will include food from Chai’s Island Bistro, entertainment from the Singing Miss Hawaiis in 1940s style costumes, period re-enactors, a first peek at the museum’s newest aircraft, military vehicles, cocktails, and drawings for restaurants gift certificates, hotel packages and even trips to New York and Australia. The evening will recognize Medal of Honor winner Tom Hudner, who, DeHoff says, “crashed a perfectly good aircraft to rescue another pilot.” That pilot was his good friend and the Navy’s first African-American pilot.
The fundraiser won’t be a somber occasion but will celebrate the joy that was Hawaii just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“If you ask your parents, ‘What were you doing on Dec. 6?’ normally they would be out partying, dancing and having a good time. I can relate it to Sept. 10. The day before you didn’t have a care in the world. So it was the last gala, and we’re trying to bring that back.”
The goal is to raise $200,000. Individual tickets cost $250 and tables have been selling fast. Both are available online or by calling 441-1000.
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