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It’s settled:
Kohala will adorn
its King in red
and yellow

An island poll decides
how the Kamehameha statue
will be restored

---

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

KAPAAU, Hawaii -- The Kamehameha statue vote is in, and red and yellow paint beats gold as the people's choice.

For months, the question has been whether the original statue in the Big Island's North Kohala District should remain painted in its now-traditional life-like colors, or be converted to unpainted bronze accented with gold leaf, the finishes displayed by copies of the statue that stand in Honolulu and Hilo.

The vote tallied this weekend was clear-cut: 113 for paint and 41 for gilding. Some people wrote in options that weren't on the mail-out ballot. One person voted for a combination of paint and gilding, and five wanted plain bronze with no additional finish.

California-based conservator Glenn Wharton has committed himself to restoring the statue following the option the community selects.

By Rod Thompson, Star-Bulletin
The Big Island statue will keep its colors.

The final colors will be bright, but voter turnout was lackluster. Of about 1,800 ballots mailed out with color photos of each option, the 160 returned represent a 9 percent response.

Balloting coordinator Sharon Hayden was undaunted. Wharton had told her a 10 percent response would be "extraordinary."

The question of how to color the king has its roots in Wharton's restoration of the statue in front of the state Supreme Court in downtown Honolulu a few years ago.

That copy was commissioned by the Hawaiian Kingdom after the original, by American sculptor Thomas Ridgeway Gould, was lost in a shipwreck off Argentina en route from Europe in 1880.

The original eventually was recovered and brought to Hawaii in 1882, finally reaching its present location in Kapaau in 1912.

Somewhere along the line, no one knows when or why, the tradition arose of painting the statue in skin tones with yellow and red garments.

Wharton found that the statue had been painted at least 25 times.

Winnie Gonsalves voted for paint. "We like the king the way he is. To me, the one in Hilo (with the king's skin represented as a dark bronze) looks like an African, not a Hawaiian," she said.

Toshiko "Spongy" Murakami, a friend of Kealoha Sugiyama, who painted the statue the last time around, says the Honolulu version, like the Hilo one, also is too dark.

Jill DeFehr was among the 91 percent who didn't vote. She was leaning toward gilding to see what it would be like, but lost track of her ballot.

Market owner Shiro Takata wanted a consistent, gilded finish for all three statues. Different colors may lead tourists to think they're looking at different kings, he said.

But Laverne Bondalian sees no benefit in all the statues looking alike. "This is not the Grammys or the Emmys."

Now that colored paint has been decided upon, the precise colors -- especially for the skin tones -- will be selected by Hawaiian elders and civic associations, Hayden said.

Restoration work, using $75,000 from several grant sources, will be done in March, in time for the annual June 11 Kamehameha Day festivities, she said. The event draws at least 1,500 people.

With only 9 percent of the district responding, there wasn't much controversy, Takata said. The main thing is for the statue to represent Kohala well. "Make Kohala look good," he said.