Town likely to pull together after fire
By Photographer, Star-Bulletin
Several students stand in the ruins of Holualoa Elementary School, which was heavily damaged by fire Saturday. The blaze destroyed the kitchen, the only original portion of the 100-year-old school, its adjoining cafeteria, and seriously damaged two classroom buildings.

Much of Holualoa attended the 100-year-old elementary school on the Big Island

By Frankie Stapleton
Special to the Star-Bulletin

HOLUALOA, Hawaii - When adversity strikes this close-knit community on the slopes above Kailua-Kona, its people pull together.

That's the way it has always been. And that's what people say is happening now as the community deals with the aftermath of Saturday's fire at Holualoa Elementary School. The predawn blaze destroyed the kitchen, the only original portion of the 100-year-old school, and its adjoining cafeteria, and seriously damaged two classroom buildings.

Students were excused from school today as Principal Daniel Yoshida huddles with teachers and state officials to work out a plan for handling the displaced classes and feeding the school's 400 students.

"My first thought is the safety thing and how we are going to clean this mess up. Then how we are going to rebuild," he said.

Yoshida said he has complete faith in his teachers' and students' ability to cope with the situation - even if students miss the remaining instruction days in this abbreviated Thanksgiving week.

No one was injured in the blaze, which was reported shortly after 3 a.m. Saturday. But Yoshida said the value of the recently renovated cafeteria and two classrooms as well as the electronic equipment, musical instruments and other items destroyed in the fire is much more than the reported $200,000 loss.

He said the cost of a single portable classroom, complete with desks and equipment is $180,000.

Members of the community, many of whom attended the school, were saddened by the intangible loss of history.

"Holualoa School is very dear to us. It was my first school," Alfreida Fujita said while waiting on customers at her mother's Kimura Lauhala Shop just down the street from the multilevel school.

She entered school in 1932 and completed six grades before moving up to Konawaena High School. Over the years, Holualoa School has offered classes up to eighth grade, and now, provides kindergarten through fifth grades.

Fujita recalled May Day as being the school's and community's grandest event. Students from five neighboring schools would gather on the Holualoa campus for the May Day festivities. "That's when we'd wear shoes for the first time, wear leis for the first time."

"I really hope it's not arson," she said. "It would be the worst thing to think someone could be so vicious."

A fire in 1982 that consumed four classrooms at the school was the work of vandals. But Fire Capt. Vince Tolentino this weekend said he saw no sign of arson or other evidence to pinpoint the cause of Saturday's inferno.

Classes were suspended for just a day by the 1982 blaze.

The school was closed for a longer period after the outbreak of World War II.

According to a history compiled by Tomie Kawahara Ahn for the school's centennial celebration this past spring, the U.S. military occupied the campus after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Classes were spread out around the community - at the Catholic, Protestant and Buddhist church halls and at a nearby store.

The military atmosphere continued even after the children returned to the Holualoa campus. Real tear gas was used in gas-mask drills and students practiced bombing drills by heading for caves in the slopes above the school.

Like almost everyone in the Holualoa community, Holualoa Post Office worker Gloria Miyashiro had to pass by Saturday to see what the fire had done to her alma mater.

When she started school in 1950, life in the multicultural Kona community was peaceful even if resources were stretched. "In those days, even the principal taught classes."

Another alumna, Barbara Tremaine, was overcome with emotion watching the fire.

She was the second of four generations of her family to attend Holualoa School.

Parents say Tremaine's love of the campus and its students shows in the well-manicured grounds. She's been the school's caretaker for the past 23 years.

What brought Tremaine to tears was the loss of her office on the cafeteria's ground floor.

Pictures of students through the years, drawings, ceramics and other mementos they made for her were displayed throughout the room.

"It was was like a second home for me," she said. "I was just heartbroken. It's hard to talk about ... "

Jillynn Parker Shoop was taking pictures Saturday afternoon of the kitchen's smoking ruins. "I learned my catering business from working in this kitchen. Mrs. Kahananui, she taught me how to cook," she reminisced.

She had watched the fire destroy the cafeteria, which she described as the social hub of the campus. She was sad, she said, for the loss of history.

But speaking as chairwoman of the 100-year anniversary fund-raising committee, she's ready to pitch in and do what has to be done. "This town will pull together so strongly in reaction to this," Parker Shoop said.

"It will all come together. The immediate problem is the need to feed the children."

Former student Josh Caluag, 21, sitting in a pickup truck surveying the damage Saturday evening, voiced the sentiment felt by many others: "It's kinda tragic, but knowing this place, everyone's going to come together and make it even better."