waha nui

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March 08, 2006 - MidWeek The Islander

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This month’s issue of Sunset magazine takes a look at Big Island farmers, including Hawaiian Vanilla Co., owned and operated by former Kailua residents Jimmer and Tracy Reddekopp and their growing brood of children (six) and vanilla plants (10,000). Cultivating the gourmet crop isn’t easy, admits Jimmer, who once played Tony in Ron Bright’s West Side Story. “You have to have some emotion to make it work and the passion to do it right,” he told the magazine ...

Kimie Irvin of Kailua has earned a place on the fall dean’s list at Seattle Pacific University ... Ken Zeri of Kaneohe is one of 11 recipients of the 2006 “Leading the Way” award from the national Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. As the 1996 president of HPNA, Ken saw membership grow to more than 2,500; they also opened a website and established a commercial office site that year. Each of the past presidents was honored last month at the group’s assembly in Nashville, Tenn. ...

Kahana Naluai

Kahana Naluai of Ahuimanu has completed basic training with the Air National Guard at Lackland AFB, Texas ... Hawaii Women Lawyers honors Kailua attorney Melody MacKenzie in a ceremony Friday for five outstanding women in the community. Melody will receive the HWL 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award for three decades of dedication to Native Hawaiian rights. She is currently an assistant professor at the UH law school and executive director of its new Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law ... Kailua resident Tony Pisculli directs HTY’s hip-hop version of Othello, playing through March 18 at Tenney Theatre (839-8995) ... Grinnell College in Iowa lists Heather Kramer of Kailua and Benjamin Leider of Kaneohe among its Dean’s List scholars for fall semester ...

Next up for Windward opera fans: Kaneohe’s John Mount in Hawaii Opera Theatre’s Tosca, playing Friday, Sunday and next Tuesday at Blaisdell Concert Hall (596-7858) ... Bishop Museum Press has just released a book by Kailua’s Rita Makana Risser Chai, Na Mo’olelo Lomilomi: The Traditions of Hawaiian Massage and Healing ... In the midst of flood warnings, emergency bulletins, road closures and damage reports from Windward residents last week, along comes a timely, helpful announcement from the folks at the Board of Water Supply: They’ve scheduled a free Detect-a-Leak demonstration in Palolo Valley ... Daniel Suzuki, a P.E. teacher at Olomana Youth Center, is also a 2006 HMSA Ola Pono awardee - which comes with a

Maui

$1,000 prize (to donate to his favorite charity). Daniel has coordinated a weightlifting contest in the community since 1997, partly to instill social skills in his students, and partly to develop their class attendance and good strength-building habits ... Sometimes you just gotta give your family some credit. That’s how Fred and Jan-Joy Sax Barnett felt after their cat came back. Their pet feline, Maui, whom they found on a Maui beach, had gone missing one night without stopping in for dinner. The Kailua couple were not upset for long, however, because of Fred’s cousin Michael Beigel. Fred says Michael invented the microchip that the Hawaiian Humane Society and many local veterinarians insert into pets these days. Maui was found less than a week later on Kailua Beach. Actually, Michael developed the chip as a way to count penguins, but that’s another story ... It pays to do your homework. While preparing to testify for Sen. Clayton Hee‘s Sand Bar bill (to make Ahu o Laka a state monument), kumu hula Frank Hewett made a startling discovery: He is a direct descendent of Laka, the great chief and navigator; and his family’s bones may be among those found at the sand bar and now being held at the Historic Preservation Office ... The Squirrel Hunters go live at Dixie Grill March 16 during the Thursday night “Dixie Jams” on Ward Avenue. Kailua “hunters” are Paul Sato and Kilin Reece