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Starbulletin.com's 'Truth'
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Star-Bulletin

Five people from Kaimuki to Sweden are better off today for having read the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in print and on the Internet.

They were all participants in the Truth Will Set You Free contest and survey conducted over the past month. Prizes ranged from a Palm Pilot III electronic organizer to a shopping spree at Waikele Premium Outlets.

The contest was aimed at getting readers of the print edition to check out starbulletin.com on the Web, and vice versa. The survey was aimed at finding out just who starbulletin.com's online readers are.

Lulu Cowden, a Lihue medical technician, won the Truth contest's first prize, a $2,500 shopping spree at Waikele Premium Outlets.

"No problem, I can go tomorrow!" joked Cowden when told of the prize. She normally travels to Oahu for her Christmas shopping, so for her the shopping spree is well timed.

For Carrie Akamine of Kaimuki, the Truth contest paid off in the form of a $1,500 twin black pearl and platinum pendant. Akamine, who said this is the first time she's won any major prize, entered the Truth contest at the urging of her boyfriend. "He actually did most of the work," she said. "He's always playing on his computer.

The third prize, a $1,000 five-night stay at the Turtle Bay Hilton plus two rounds of golf at the Links at Kuilima, sits well with Gregory Hara of Waipahu. Hara, a local manufacturer's representative for a nutritional-products maker, has no problem with a vacation close to home. "Wow, terrific!" he said when told of the prize.

The global reach of the Internet is illustrated by both prize winners in the separate Truth survey.

The survey's first prize, a $1,355 Wyland framed print entitled "Gray Whale Waters," will bring Hawaii a bit closer to Jonas Elf, a computer programmer in Orebro, Sweden, a town about 120 miles west of Stockholm.

He began reading starbulletin.com after a friend came to study in Hawaii, and hopes to take a trip here himself some day. "Everybody wants to come to Honolulu, especially here in Sweden," Elf said.

Not quite so far from the islands is software consultant Ryan Castinado, who won the survey's second prize, a $329 Palm Pilot III handheld electronic organizer.

Castinado's family makes the trip from Sylmar, Calif., to Hawaii every other year or so, and said his mother in law used to live in Lanikai. "When I married into the family I kind of married into Hawaii," he said.

During the Truth contest's 28-day run, a total of 1,194 correct entries were received; 2,250 people filled out the survey.

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