Hawaii
THE Diamond Head Grill folks in the W Hotel already are dealing with long lines of people eager to spend $10 to get inside and mingle on Friday nights, and now they're extending the policy to Saturdays as well, hoping for similar results. It seems odd, but pianist David Swanson, who's been providing music for the masses, is heading to Sarento's on the weekends. They figure nobody much was paying attention to the music anyway, so they'll not have live entertainers five nights a week. Only dynamite singer Ginai, with Zanuck Kapala Lindsey, will stay on, moving to Wednesdays and Thursdays ... Diamond Head Grill
fuels Friday frenzySIR Roger Ritchie, as we always called the jolly Brit who was for years head of community and public relations for Hawaiian Airlines in the 1970s, popped back into town for confabs with Hawaiian over its new 717 aircraft. Now based in Manhattan, Sir Roger has been with FlightSafety International for the past 13 years, a firm that trains pilots in handling new aircraft, often in partnership with manufacturers like Boeing. It was here he learned about the death of his old friend (and mine) Simon Cardew ...
ANOTHER remarkable person's obituary appeared in the papers this week. Little was said about Lee Reno Dawson, who died at the age of 97. He first visited Hawaii as a radio operator on a passenger ship to Asia which stopped here in 1924. He returned in 1936 to be FCC Chief Engineer for the Pacific Region, a post he held until moving to Washington to be assistant chief of the FCC Field Operating Division. He retired in 1962 and then took up snow skiing, a passion he pursued for 30 years. He drove his own car until his license expired in March of this year and then donated his beloved Ford Festiva to the Kidney Foundation. A remarkably full life for a remarkable man ...
Return to the Islands
TWO women who used to live in Hawaii before venturing off to the mainland are returning. Already back is real estate woman Jan Campbell Atkins. One of the founders of Historic Hawaii Foundation, Jan started her own commercial real estate company in the 1970s with a clever Tom Sellers designed business card featuring a Campbell Soup can. (She hadn't gone on the Atkins diet at that point.) She's now with Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties Commercial and working bi-coastal between California and Hawaii ... And back after 35 years on the mainland as a Northwest airlines flight attendant is Gwen Ahue Tompkins. Gwen will be moving her business, Wacky Willy's, from Portland, Ore., to Kawaihae Street in Honolulu. It's a store filled with things you thought you could do without but must have after you've seen them ...
Eight-month lease?
IT isn't every business that would leap at nabbing an eight-month lease, but when Lloyd Jones of Martin & MacArthur, the handcrafted koa wood furniture folks, learned that the Nature Company at Ala Moana Center had closed and a new tenant had signed a lease starting in January of 2002, he signed up on a short-term basis. The space has now been transformed into the image of his other showrooms, right up to the "menehune sized" koa rocking chair perched at the top of the storefront sign ...
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: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com