Kimo lobbying
aweigh in D.C.DUE back tomorrow after a whirlwind trip to Washington is promoter Kimo McVay. He was there to help in the effort to get a bill through Congress exonerating his father of any wrongdoing in the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Massive news coverage of his mission came thanks to the presence of a 12-year-old Florida boy named Hunter Scott and his push to cancel the Navy's court martial of Capt. Charles McVay. Kimo reports they had a half-hour session with House Speaker Newt Gingrich who said, "Let's get this done in a hurry." The Navy continues to stonewall, however, unwilling to admit even today that a mistake was made over 50 years ago. Another aiding in the effort is retired but still influential lobbiest Michael Monroney, whose father was an Oklahoma senator for 40 years. McVay and Monroney were old school chums at St. Albans in Washington in the early 1940s, and but for a case of the mumps, Monroney would have been aboard the Indianapolis when it was sunk ...
STUMPING for the Mexican vote? Maui's Linda Lingle has been spending more and more time on Oahu in her run for governor, and the other night was doing some taco-bending at Cisco's Cantina in Kailua ... Waipahu's Mike Morton, the anagram king, is still head-scratching over a spot he saw on TV telling him he could "Win a trip to Japan on Japan Airlines or a Huffy Bike." He's still trying to figure out how to get to Japan on a Huffy Bike ... That Castle production of "The King and I" is sold out this weekend, so director Ron Bright has added one final performance on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Call the theater for reservations ...
Back to Pearl City
IT'S one more case of "You can take the girl out of Pearl City, but you can't take Pearl City out of the girl." Miss Universe, Brook Lee, returns to her roots this morning to crown seven winners of the Miss Universe Na Keiki Aloha poster contest at Pearlridge Center, where she spent time herself as a keiki. The seven kids from throughout the state drew posters best representing aloha spirit ...YOU may think that UH student Jennifer Sharkey is taking her name literally. Her work is showcased in the Contemporary Museum Cafe's "Metaphoric Menagerie IV," and her work is a mask in the shape of a squid. Sharkey bait, right? ... Those "Napoleon's Pies" TV spots of Nick Kaars featuring a "flaky" Gen. Napoleon, have been awarded a bronze statuette from the prestigious 1998 Telly Awards, a national competition honoring excellence in TV commercials. This is Kaars' second Telly for Napoleon's Bakery ...
WITH apologies to "The Donald," Ivana and Ivanka Trump had better make way for a new Mother-Daughter duo. Making a splash on the fashion runway at a tea and fashion show hosted by the Soroptimist International of Waikiki were 10-year-old Alysn, 8-year-old Kaitlyn and their mom, Susan Au Doyle. They were wearing fashions by Laura Ashley to benefit the YWCA's Women's Resource Center ...
Raising cane
SOMETIME photog Keith Haugen, who's been a resident here for many years, remembers when sugarcane was everywhere, the No. 1 industry in the state -- far ahead of tourism. Now it's disappeared. He needed a photo of a cane field, and after much searching, had to settle for some shots of a small clump of cane growing in a fenced-in enclosure at Plantation Village in Waipahu. Says Haugen, "It doesn't seem that long ago that we saw cane fires and had black snow blowing into our homes." ...
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: donnelly@kestrok.com.