FORT WORTH, Texas -- Jon Nakamatsu has been awarded a gold medal in the 10th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He is the son of former Hawaii residents David and Karen Nakamatsu. Son of ex-isle residents
wins piano competitionA graduate of Stanford University, the 28-year-old from Sunnyvale, Calif., was probably the only contestant who didn't go to a conservatory or even major in music.
A crowd of some 3,000 applauded wildly at the announcement yesterday by conductor James Conlon and gave Nakamatsu a standing ovation as he joined Cliburn and other finalists on the stage of the Tarrant County Convention Center theater.
Nakamatsu is a high school German teacher in San Jose, Calif.
First prize in the quadrennial competition is $20,000 cash and scores of concert engagements. The total value of the top prize is estimated at $250,000.
His parents are former isle residents David Nakamatsu and Karen (Maeda) Nakamatsu.
HILO -- Having just saved a husband, wife and child during the 1966 flooding of Alenaio Stream, police officer William Loeffler was caught in the rushing water and carried about 800 feet downstream through downtown Hilo, much of the time underwater. Hilo residents greet Alenaio
Stream channel with reliefNo one was killed in the eight or more floods from the stream since 1929, but Loeffler may have come the closest to death.
That threat has finally been minimized with the completion last month of the $17.1 million Alenaio Stream Flood Control Project.
The project had been planned since 1978 and under construction since 1995. Before that six other studies were done starting in 1941, with nothing coming of them.
The 1966 flood was the biggest, leaving more than 100 downtown businesses in 2 feet of water, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
Mikie Taguchi, a retired photo shop clerk, said she has lived in one house or another along the stream all her life. Now living in one of several dozen plantation-style houses built decades ago, she remembers people being pulled to safety by a rope in the 1966 flood.
As recently as 1994, flood waters entered the basement of her present home, she said.
The Salvation Army meeting hall and thrift shop were also flooded in 1994. Salvation Army Maj. Joseph Huttenlocker, blessing the project last month, said he was grateful for it. "Now we don't have to build our new building like an ark," he said.
Young stars rotate 10 times faster than the sun, but with half the mass and a temperature of 5,840 degrees Fahrenheit, according to astronomers from the University of Hawaii and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Maryland. Pioneer study
sheds light on early starsThomas P. Greene of the UH Institute for Astronomy and Charles J. Lada of the Smithsonian observatory are expected tomorrow to present to the American Astronomical Society in North Carolina their findings on the temperatures, rotation speeds and approximate sizes of infant stars, known as protostars.
Greene said the study, the first to reveal such details, should spur more in-depth research and understanding of the very earliest phases of stellar evolution and what causes stars to stop accumulating material and emerge from a dark interstellar cloud.
"Until now, it has been difficult to learn much about the natures and structures of the youngest stars," Greene said. "However, these new observations and results show that the astrophysical study of protostars is now under way."
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Police/Fire
By Star-Bulletin staffPolice seek public's help
in identifying corpsePolice are seeking the public's assistance in identifying a man whose body was found floating in Haleiwa Channel on Wednesday.
The man did not have a right thumb, which was surgically removed, police said. He was wearing only maroon shorts and a copper and bronze wedding ring on his left ring finger.
The body was recovered about 500 yards from the red buoy that leads into the boat harbor.
In other news:
Other Police/Fire headlines
in today’s Star-Bulletin:
- Auggie's game room site of morning fire
- Motorcycle driver, 53, killed in collision
- Maui pedestrian suffers head and leg injuries
- Cop's car is stolen, then torched on H-3
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Info] section for subscription information.
