Hawaii
YOU know you're getting old when your son calls from the mainland to wish you a happy Father's Day and your response is, "You too." More and more when I meet people they say, "I think you know my dad," or even worse, "my mom!" So it was when I attended the Miss Hawaii pageant at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Friday night. An old friend, Nora Meijide, invited me to come because her daughter, Candes, was in the contest. I remember her as a tyke in a stroller when Nora was married to developer Tom Gentry and about the age Candes is today. To my pleasure and surprise, Candes won the crown and was named Miss Hawaii 1999. She combines the good looks of her mom, still a knockout, and the brains and daring of her father, the late developer who created Gentry Homes. And when Candes, a graduate of the UH Travel Industry Management program, says her ambition is to own and develop boutique hotels, I wouldn't bet against it. She'll be a great representative of the 50th state in Atlantic City at the Miss America Pageant ... Stroller kid now
strolls runways
THE U.S. Open conclusion yesterday was one of the most dramatic ever, with Payne Stewart sinking a long putt to edge Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. It would have been high drama for Mickelson to win, since it was Father's Day and he's becoming a father for the first time this week, but fatherhood alone is a nifty consolation prize. For Stewart, who frankly blew last year's Open, it was sweet revenge ...
Anything goes
THE six talented young performers who made up the troupe of "Second City," which performed Friday and Saturday nights at the Hawaii Theatre, were a delight. No subject matter was verboten, no language deemed improper (though it was relatively mild by today's standards, such as they are) and no sacred temples not ripe for the plundering. Which is why Blockbuster Video was slammed so hard - the six even got cards from members of the audience and cut them up. And the food at T.G.I.Friday's was deemed, well, inedible. Some of the locally inspired improvisation pieces didn't go over as well as the prepared material, but the rehearsed scene reenacting the Zapruder Film of the JFK assassination, played in slow motion, was a classic, dissolving into Gov. John Connelly kissing the president on the lips during the ride through Dealey Plaza. It was zany and wild, but maybe you had to be there. And as theater manager Burton White was passing out leis at the end of the program, he was taken somewhat aback when one of the boys grabbed and kissed him as well ...MAYOR Jeremy Harris was the best man when former newsman and now government computer exec Courtney Harrington wed girlfriend Lani Okamura at the Hawaii Prince ... And ex-isle newsman Kelly Dean, who'd bought a one-bedroom unit in Waterfront Towers 10 years ago, celebrated his birthday by purchasing a two-bedroom penthouse in the complex. He's now retired after nine years of working in Hong Kong ...
We're goin' to Disneyworld!
CONGRATS to David Kalani Sylvester, youngest son of former isle public relations exec Nick Sylvester. Young Sylvester, who's named after David Awong and Kalani Kinimaka, graduates from digital animation college in Orlando, Fla., on July 2, and will go to work for Disney. To celebrate, the whole family is having a luau at Disneyworld. Where else? ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
His columns run Monday through Friday.Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.