DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Mourners gathered yesterday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.
Wide range of mourners As U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink left the state Capitol for the last time, mourners lined up and formed a human corridor in tribute as her coffin, draped in an American flag, was carried by a military honor guard to a waiting hearse.
a tribute to Mink’s
compassion for others
Residents recall ways the
Mink laid to rest at Punchbowl
congresswoman touched their lives
By Craig Gima
cgima@starbulletin.comDress shoes and slippers, T-shirts and starched aloha shirts, shorts, long pants and muumuus stood side by side. Some people wiped away tears; others stood with their hands on their hearts as Mink's coffin was carried past the statue of Father Damien -- another champion of the disenfranchised -- on its way to the National Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.
The mourners were a cross-section of Hawaii and the people Mink helped and represented.
Kaye Maunakea-Stang, whose mother was a classmate of Mink's mother, caught the bus to be at the Capitol yesterday.
"I feel that we have lost someone that fought for what we believe in and put her whole heart and soul in it," she said.
"I feel she's part of our family," Maunakea-Stang said.
Landa Phelan, vice president of the Honolulu chapter of the National Federation for the Blind, met Mink just a week before she went into the hospital.
"She touched my heart," Phelan said. "She was like one of us. She is not above us, she is with us."
Phelan was lobbying for audio voting machines for the blind. Phelan said Mink came out from behind her desk to hug her.
"She was this tiny, little, itty-bitty dynamic lady," she said. "She felt like a little bird in my arms."
Mink was supportive and inspirational, Phelan said.
"'You go for it,' she says. 'Not only will I support you, I'll be there. I'll be leading the way with you,'" Phelan said.
"The day will come when Hawaii will have their audio voting machines, and every time I vote, I will always remember Patsy."
Leialoha Kaluhiwa said: "She's the aina lady. She defended our aina." When Mink was a city councilwoman, she helped the Kaluhiwa family avoid eviction and helped protect 220 acres of land in Heeia Kea Valley. Last month, Mink's early efforts led to the city purchasing the land as a nature preserve.
Debi Hartmann, a former member of the state Board of Education, brought her daughter Alison to the service. Her daughter goes to a federally funded Hawaiian language immersion school and plays soccer.
"I wanted her to know that Mrs. Mink's legacy actually lives, and that she won't forget how important it is," Hartmann said. Mink was co-author of the federal Title IX law that paved the wave for equality for female athletes in the nation's schools.
"She went to Washington," said Alison, 7. "Now girls can play sports."
At the end of the formal service for Mink, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka led mourners in singing "Hawaii Aloha." People held hands and raised them over their heads during the last verse.
As the song concluded, red and white balloons were released. The balloons caught on ceilings of the various levels of the Capitol, bumping and fighting to be free until they finally rose through the atrium into the bright blue Hawaiian sky.
