KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Dryssen Higa, 10, is a budding floral designer at Flo's Min Florist in Pearl City.
Boy’s interest blooms as floral heir apparent Before 10-year-old Dryssen Higa showed his flair with flowers, the family-owned Flo's Min Florist in Pearl City had no heir-apparent.
Pearl City’s family of florists
sees the future — and he's 10By Genevieve A. Suzuki
gsuzuki@starbulletin.comHis great-grandmother, Florence Uno, began the business in 1954 as a flower shop and saimin stand. She ran the flower shop while her sister, Dorothy Yuu, looked after the food operation, which closed in the 1960s. (The "min" in the name is a remnant of the saimin operation.)
"She took care of the flower shop because she loved working with flowers. It's her first love," said JoAnn Uno, one of Florence's six children who inherited the business.
Florence's children, one boy and five girls, did not share her enthusiasm. But as obedient offspring, they dutifully helped out at the shop after school and their regular jobs.
The grandchildren showed an equal lack of interest. They helped out, too, but displayed no willingness to take over the shop.
Florence Uno died in 1988, leaving the business to her children: JoAnn Uno, Janet Kuraoka, Carole Kunishige, Roy Uno, Merle Chang (Dryssen's grandmother), and Doreen Kaneshiro.
They run the business to this day, helping move the operation from its original 600-square-foot shop to the current 3,800-square-foot store on Lehua Avenue.
They worried that none of their offspring was interested in the family business.
Finally Dryssen, one of Florence's five great-grandchildren, changed the trend. The youngster has displayed not only a knack for floral arrangements but also an interest in the responsibility of running the family business.
"He already asked me if he can become president after me," said JoAnn Uno, who holds the top post at the shop.
As the generations before him, Dryssen practically grew up at the flower shop. While his grandaunts worked in the shop, they baby-sat him and let him make arrangements with old flowers.
"He was just a toddler; we had to give him a dull blade because we didn't want him to hurt himself," Uno said.
When he was only about 3, he showed he had the right attitude, too.
Grandaunt Doreen Kaneshiro said she took him to Toys "R" Us when he was 3 years old and told him he may have anything in the store. "He chose a mop and a broom," Kaneshiro recalled.
Dryssen's choice fit in well with the family's rule at the flower shop, dictating that youngsters needed to begin by learning to clean up, she said.
When he was 7 or 8, the adults began noticing Dryssen's talent with flowers and foliage, which he apparently inherited from his great-grandmother.
Arranging flowers comes naturally to him, Dryssen said. "I guess because I was brought up this way."
Dryssen is expected to follow in the family tradition. When he reaches legal age for a driver's license, he will get one so he can help make deliveries. He also is encouraged to go to college and develop a career outside of the flower shop.
In the meanwhile, he is expected to continue working at the shop after school. He earns no wages; his only payoff, a free lunch when he's there.
The difference between him and his elders: Dryssen is happy to work at the shop while his relatives became involved purely out of a sense of obligation.
"It wasn't a choice for us. It was a mom-and-pop store and we all had to help with the business after school. We could go out to play after we finish with the chores.
"But by the time we finished, we couldn't go out to play because it was already dark," Uno recalled.
(Dryssen's mother, Lisa Higa, is a vice principal at Leihoku Elementary School and is typical among Uno's descendants in her lack of interest in the family business.)
Dryssen's great-grandmother, whom he never met, would be proud, Uno said.
"She very much wanted to keep the business in the family," Uno said. "I keep telling him, 'If great-grandma were here, she'd be smiling.'"
