TheBuzz Erika Engle

Community radio coming to Pahala

Lest anybody wonder if there is a sufficient advertising base to support a station in the sparsely populated area not known for bustling commerce -- it is to be a noncommercial educational station.

Of course, that doesn't mean it won't need money.

That's where Vicki Fiege comes in, executive director of Ka'u Public Radio and the grant writer who secured $25,000 from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for Haola's radio effort about three-and-a-half years ago.

"OHA's been very patient and I'm really grateful to them for hanging in there," she said. "We had no idea it would take this long."

The Pahala application was sought because the area is, "so underserved."

It is also spread out, with "so many things going on down there ... this was one way to help bring the community together," Fiege said.

Residents repeatedly told Fiege and Haola Vice President Wendell Kaehuaea that "they have no idea what's going on" when Civil Defense sirens blare because radiowise, "there's kind of a whole dead area down there," she said.

Haola has two more so-called noncommercial educational applications for Hilo and Waimea pending with the Federal Communications Commission. They are among about 80 Hawaii applications and hundreds nationwide, awaiting FCC action.

Haola supports community and Hawaiian organizations and the stations will support their communities with hyper-local news and information and broadcast training for youth, Kaehuaea said.

In his younger days, "I put up KAHU (AM 940 in Waipahu) with Ron Jacobs," Kaehuaea said of the broadcast icon's former station. It is now KKNE.

Kaehuaea snapped up the KAHU call letters for AM 1060 outside Hilo, after KAHU became KDEO in 1980.

"I was the first native Hawaiian in the nation to have a radio station," he said. He later sold KAHU, now KHBC, but owns the land under its tower. Other tower sites have been secured for the Waimea and Pahala stations.

The Pahala studio was built a few years ago in part of the Pahala Plantations store, for which Fiege expressed gratitude to owner Julia Neal. "She's fabulous ... she was really a driving force," she said.

The permittees have three years to get FM 91.7 on the air, but "we'll be doing it sooner," Fiege said.