Public servant helped build
character, community

Minoru Inaba / Kona Educator

SEE ALSO: OBITUARIES

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

KAILUA-KONA >> Minoru "Gabby" Inaba, former Kona educator and legislator, died Thursday at his home in Kealakekua, Hawaii. He was 98.

Inaba's 38 years as a teacher, coach, and vice principal at Konawaena High School from the 1920s made him a a respected figure. "He had the respect of two generations. He taught fathers and children," said Kona rancher and former County Councilman Sherwood Greenwell.

Over the years, Democrat Inaba helped Republican Greenwell with his campaign, and Greenwell returned the favor.

On Inaba's retirement from the school system, then-Gov. John Burns took note of his availability.

"Gov. Burns wanted him to run," Greenwell said. Inaba served in the Legislature as a representative from Kona for 10 years in the 1960s and 1970s.

What Inaba had done as an educator to build individuals, he did for Kona's physical facilities as a legislator.

Inaba obtained money for a new Kona Hospital, to expand Honokohau Harbor, to drill a new water well, making a community water system possible.

"I can remember the days (before the well) when we all had water tanks in Kona," said Marnie Herkes of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce.

Inaba brought money to his district "unfailingly," Greenwell said.

The son of Jentaro and Hatsuyo Inaba, Minoru Inaba was born into a family of seven brothers and two sisters who succeeded in several professions.

But his childhood could be hard, a fact he relates in his own voice in an oral history description of his work as a seventh-grader harvesting coffee. It can be heard at: http://www 2.soc.hawaii.edu/css/oral_hist/konaau.html

Coffee also shaped Inaba's sports activities. He coached several sports, but not football, because Kona schools were on a "coffee schedule," holding classes in the summer but not in the fall harvesting season when other schools were fielding football teams.

His youthful coffee experiences served the community eight decades later as Inaba helped the Kona Historical Society preserve the Uchida Coffee Farm as a museum a decade ago.

"He was a great guy," said Greenwell.

Inaba is survived by his wife Sumie Jane; daughters Jeanette Tinnel, Mae Kawahara, and Annette Sato; brothers Yoshio, Norman, Goro and James; five grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Daifukuji Soto Mission in Honalo. Call after 10 a.m.