By Dave Donnelly
Friday, December 13, 1996
Rick Fried, Emerald Yeh
Rick Fried, Emerald Yeh
THINGS are going to be just a little happier this year at the Ronald McDonald House thanks to the many folks who took part in Don Murphy's annual gift-wrapping party Wednesday night. Each year people bring an unwrapped toy or gift to his Murphy's Bar & Grill, where volunteers wrap them for presentation to the people at the Ronald McDonald House in Manoa. Even UH football coach Fred vonAppen showed up with a gift, well remembering that it was Murphy who raised $37,000 in an auction for the UH football program in the fall when its budget was cut by the state. He wasn't ducking anyone either, wearing an athletic suit with his name embroidered on it. Over 200 gifts were collected and the Ronald McDonald staffers volunteered to come down and get them. Doubtless they recall the year Murphy delivered a huge batch of gifts to the home next door to the McDonald house, and a maid accepted delivery. Attorney Rick Fried, who owned the house at the time, realized what must have happened when he got home and took the presents next door ... No detour for Ronnie’s toys
ODD priorities: Channel 9's Jade Moon did a local fire story in which she reported that a family's Christmas tree and presents were destroyed. But before you could feel sorry for them about that she added, in what sounded like an afterthought, there was a total of $200,000 damage to the residence ...
SPEAKING of television personalities, Emerald Yeh, who handles consumer news for KRON-TV in San Francisco and writes a weekly column on the subject for the Chronicle, was in Honolulu to be keynote speaker at the Organization of Chinese Americans scholarship banquet. Emerald's life is about to take on a dramatic change - she and husband Ron Blackman are expecting twins in April ...
PLANNING a grand time this holiday season is Leeward Community College carpenter Richard Mercado. He won the UH's annual best of systemwide maintenance and groundskeepers award, which carries with it a check for $1,000. That's the same award as top teachers and researchers will receive when they're named at ceremonies in the spring. Leading the applause for Mercado at Wednesday's award program was his sister, Honolulu City Councilwoman Donna Mercado Kim ... Grand holiday present
THE first three people inducted into the newly established Honolulu Mar-athon Hall of Fame are Dr. Jack Scaff, "Father of the Honolulu Marathon"; longtime Marathon registration head Edith Leiby, who has been involved since the run's inception in 1973 when there were 162 entrants, compared to the more than 30,000 last week; and Hawaii native Dr. Duncan McDonald, who won the first Marathon 24 years ago and subsequently won again in 1976 and 1980. Their prize is called the Kukini Award. Legend has it that the kukini were the swiftest runners of the king, and could carry a fish from Hilo to Kailua-Kona before the fish died. (I know, I know, but old-timers insist it's true.) ...
WITH the same-sex marriage ruling getting so much attention worldwide, a rash of jokes has broken out. My favorite one deals with Michael Jackson, who is said to have been so taken with the ruling that he's getting a divorce, moving to Hawaii and marrying himself! ...
WRITER Sandra Kimberley Hall is back from Tucson, Arizona, where she was amazed to find so much interest in the late Duke Kahanamoku. She'd co-written "Memories of Duke: The Legend Comes to Life" with Greg Ambrose and was attending a book signing in Tucson. While autographing books, she met Jack Dunn, a fellow Mason with Duke in the '30s; Iokepa Holck, who used to be Duke's newspaper boy; Helen Harmon Nazzaro, who gave her some rare photos of Duke with her aviator uncle, Major Harold Clark; and Jan Schulten's daughter, who bought a copy for her nonagenarian mom, an old friend of the Kahanamokus who now lives in Florida. She even ran into Wally Amos ... Duke in the desert
