Hawaii

By Dave Donnelly

Thursday, August 29, 1996

Rider Hunt one of city's
oldest firms

LET'S see, as President Clinton, utilizing every train metaphor in his arsenal, arrived on board the "21st Century Special" for the Democrat Party convention in Chicago (claiming to be "on track," etc.), this country is 220 years old. The U.S. Constitution is 209 years old, having been passed in 1787. So when I get an invitation to a party from a company called Rider Hunt Ltd. that is celebrating its 211th anniversary on Sept. 6, it tends to get one's attention. The company, they tell me, is involved in construction consultancy, which means, I guess, that they once recommended what kind of peat to use when building a structure. But then they were also into surveying back in the 1700s, which makes more sense. In any case, Rider Hunt has offices in Bishop Square and must be the oldest company in town ...

Steve Boyle
TWO recent returnees from the mainland, Ed Reinhart and the Star-Bulletin's Richard Borecca, both report that while miles from wildfires raging through the West, the former in Tahoe and the latter in Wyoming, both were inundated with smog caused by the smoke ... Steve Boyle, G.M. of the New Otani Beach Hotel, is off to Ireland for a visit - talk about coals to Newcastle. He'll be spending some time in Killarney and the Dingle Peninsula and I recommended a couple of places for him to stay there. And to keep a running gag going, he agreed to visit Mrs. Murphy at her pub in Skibbereen, where former isle resident Tom Horton once left his raincoat. He and I have had people asking after it for years since ...

YOU have to like the sense of humor exhibited by new UH head football coach Fred vonAppen in the face of scholastic ineligibilities. The other day he deadpanned that he'd like to have more guys with 1,300 SAT scores, but right now it would take something on the order of the defensive line to add up to that ...

Charo no!

LIKE an epidemic that can't be stopped, the macarena craze continues. Some 50,000 people did it more or less in unison at Dodger Stadium during an L.A.-Expos game. You can't turn on your TV without seeing it somewhere. And now, probably inevitably, Charo is getting into the act. She's postponed her slated opening in Honolulu to demonstrate the simpleton dance on the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon with Jerry Lewis Monday, and can't you just see him trying to do it and screw it up? She'll also do the eight-bar monstrosity on the Jay Leno show on Sept. 12, the night before she reopens at the Polynesian Palace. By comparison to the macarena, the "Hokey-Pokey" seems like a Mensa exercise, but because it's so simple to do, people seem to love it. As Sports Illustrated might headline it: "Another Sign the Apocalypse Is Upon Us." ...

AUCTIONEER Marty McClain has a crew working around the clock to get his new headquarters in shape for his first auction there on Saturday. The new auction and warehouse is located on Kawaiahao just Diamond Head of Cooke Street - a few blocks from his former quarters on Queen near South. That building was taken over by the Word of Life Christian Center next door. When McClain's new project is completed, it'll be one of the spiffiest buildings in Kakaako ...

Short odds

Melissa Short
MISS Hawaii Melissa Short took off last night for Disney World in Florida where she and all the other contestants in the Miss America Pageant will spend four days. On Monday she and the others will fly to Atlantic City, N.J., to prepare for the pageant on Sept. 14. Before leaving, Melissa was given a Hawaiian name, Kaleohanokuikealolani, by Kaipo Hale of Kamehameha Schools. It means "the voice of distinction and honor that exists in the presence of the heavens above." The last time Hale gave a Hawaiian name to a contestant was in 1991 when he gave Carolyn Sapp the name, Wahinenohopono ("a woman of good standing"). Sapp went on to become Miss America and they're hoping the same magic works on Short ...


Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968. His columns run Monday through Friday. Contact Dave by e-mail at donnelly@kestrok.com.




Hawaii by Dave Donnelly is a daily feature of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
© 1996 All rights reserved.


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