UH looks to teach
golf managementOnly four other schools are
By Keith Kosaki
officially certified by professional golf
Star-BulletinA proposed professional golf management program could mean better greens on the links and more green in Hawaii's economy. But it's going to take some greenbacks -- about $100,000 worth -- to get the program started.
Two Senate committees last week passed Senate Bill 3103, which allows the University of Hawaii and the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to study the possibility of adding a PGA-certified professional golf management program at UH.
Dr. Charles W. Laughlin, dean of the UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, said in written testimony that golf contributed more than $325 million in revenues to the economy in 1996 and employed more than 3,000 people at the state's 81 golf courses.
"Golf courses are clearly resources that need to be carefully and skillfully managed," Laughlin said.
Joanne Clark, interim chancellor at the UH-West Oahu campus, supported the intent of the bill because of the educational and economic development opportunities. But she cautioned the UH is facing a $27 million budget cut, and said current fiscal conditions prevent it from developing and implementing the program.
"Given the cuts, it's an issue of how we can do this," she said.
The feasibility study would cost about $30,000 if contracted out, but the UH and DBEDT are looking into an in-house study and did not ask for any state funding, which pleased committee members.
"We want to be able to handle that as part of our research tourism budget," said Rick Egged, director of DBEDT's Office of Planning.
Clark said the UH and DBEDT also are thinking about getting private funds for start-up costs.
Clark said she's not sure how much money would be needed to start the program, but estimated about $100,000 would pay for two positions -- a program director and placement officer -- required by the PGA for certification.
Egged said the program is intended to be self-sustaining.
Four schools are already PGA certified, and the golf association will accept four more within the next two years, Clark said.
Institutions currently certified are the University of Mississippi, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania and University of New Mexico.
"To have a PGA-certified school in Hawaii would be fantastic," Clark said. "We have a lot of features we think the PGA would consider favorable."
Bill would help woman
earn retirement creditsMarion Kim says she was told
By Craig Gima
too late that she could get credit for
work in World War II
Star-BulletinFor nearly two decades, 85-year-old Marion Kim has been fighting the state for what she believes she deserves, and getting nowhere.
Now, instead of fighting a law that denied her eight months of retirement credits, she is trying to get the law changed at the state Legislature.
"I just want justice," Kim said.
In 1979, four years after she retired from her teaching job, Kim learned she could have bought back her membership service credit for the eight months she spent working for the federal government during World War II, and increased her retirement benefits by a few dollars a month.
But the law that allowed her to do that expired.
"A few dollars will help," Kim said. "I'm a widow and I have to live on my retirement and Social Security."
After letters and personal appeals failed, Kim took her fight to the Legislature.
This month, the House Labor and Public Employment Committee held a hearing on a bill, introduced by Rep. Gene Ward (R, Hawaii Kai), to give Kim the right to buy her benefits.
The retirement system opposed the measure.
Employees' Retirement System Administrator Stanley Siu said he sympathizes with Kim but that the bill would set a "bad precedent".
"If they (legislators) are going to do it for Marion, they've got to do it for everybody else who comes in," Siu said.
He noted it is very difficult to verify employment situations that go back more than 50 years.
The committee, however, passed the bill, which now goes to the Finance Committee.
Labor Chairman Noboru Yonamine (D, Pearl City) said other teachers who worked with Kim during the war verified her claim.
Kim, who was a math teacher at Waipahu High School, said she was a probationary teacher when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Her classroom was hit by a bomb.
"Had it been on a school day, I wouldn't be here today," she said.
The war interrupted her teaching career from January to August of 1942. She spent the eight months working for the Civilian Defense Agency classifying fingerprints with 11 other teachers.
Kim said the other teachers all got the benefit.
"I wasn't informed," she said. "I didn't know anything about buying back the wartime service."
Kim retired early to take care of her husband, who was stricken with Parkinson's disease.
The long illness, she said, wiped out the couple's savings.
Now Kim spends most of her time trying to take care of fruit trees and a garden in the yard of her Aina Haina home.
She apologized for the condition of the yard, even as she showed off two large mango trees, lychee and other fruit trees.
Her husband raised orchids as a hobby and Kim continues to take care of the plants.
When Hurricane Iniki hit, the high winds damaged a fence in the backyard and the hothouses where the orchids grow.
If she gets some extra money, Kim may be able to fix the hothouses and the fence.
Yonamine said this is the first time he knows when the Labor Committee has heard a bill to benefit a single individual like Kim.
He hears from a number of people every year who want to buy back retirement credits, but after talking with Kim, he felt her case was different.
"We always talk about how government is for big business or special interest, but every so often we want to help an individual who needs it. It's rare, but it's important," Yonamine said.
LEGISLATURE UPDATE
A calendar of tomorrow's hearings -- to be held at the state Capitol, 415 S. Beretania St., unless noted:
HOUSE
Labor and Public Employment: Hearing on bills relating to wage and hour law, civil service and exemptions from civil service. Decision-making to follow at the discretion of the chairman, 8:30 a.m., Room 309.
SENATE
