What, Russ Lynch,
you goin’ leave us now?
Russ Lynch will retire from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin today after banging out an estimated 30,000 stories in his nearly 37 years with the paper.
Russ Lynch: The veteran business reporter is retiring at 64 after spending more than half his life at the Star-Bulletin
Burned out from five years editing national magazines, a 26-year-old Edgar Russell Lynch bought round trip passage on a cruise ship from his native New Zealand to Hawaii and a ticket to fly on to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
It was 1966 and visitors' visas required such machinations. He eventually ran out of money and cashed out the Vancouver ticket.
Hawaii Business editor Kim Jacobsen summoned Lynch for a job interview and was impressed, but he didn't have any openings. Knowing of one at the Star-Bulletin, Lynch was referred to Business Editor Shurei Hirozawa. That interview also went well and Hirozawa hired Lynch a few months later.
Over the years, Lynch has reported on the demise of Hawaii's Big-Five, companies that were at once the backbone of life in the islands. When he started, there was no Hyatt Regency, no Sheraton Waikiki and no Hawaiian Regent. He could see the ocean from his Liliuokalani Street apartment because while the Pacific Beach Hotel existed, it didn't have a huge tower. Downtown, there was no Amfac Tower, Bishop Square or Financial Plaza of the Pacific.
There was however, a young public relations man named Walter Dods, who worked for Dillingham Corp. He joined First Hawaiian Bank's marketing department not long after he and Lynch first met.
Dods remembers well Lynch's reporting on Hawaii's gradual changeover to a tourism-driven, small-business oriented economy.
But there's another story that stands out in his mind. Bank Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Bellinger promoted him and some other executives and was making the announcement when "Russ asked Bellinger point-blank, 'could we assume your designated successor is Walter Dods?' Bellinger wasn't prepared to name one, but he was the first one who got Bellinger to say 'yes' so Russ found out the same time I did.
"Russ and I have been really good friends all these years ... We tipped more than our share at Columbia Inn and other establishments that will remain nameless," Dods said.
There is a story of Dods and Lynch being discovered, after hours, in Bellinger's office, sampling from a bottle of his prized spirits. It is unclear whether the discovery was before or after the successor announcement.
Former Columbia Inn owner Gene Kaneshiro also has maintained communication with Lynch over the years. He is now director of the School Food Services Branch of the state Department of Education.
The restaurant's bar was known as the "annex" to the news building that once housed the Star-Bulletin.
"I think that our lunch business, especially on the saloon side, thrived because of people like Lynch and (Dave) Donnelly," Kaneshiro said.
"My father used to threaten to charge him rent instead of charging him by the beer," thinking he could make more money that way, he said.
Lynch has worked for four different Star-Bulletin owners, Alexander Atherton and Chinn Ho, Gannett Co. Inc., Rupert Phillips and now, David Black, a man from the city Lynch never got to all those years ago.
Today there will be fun and merriment along with the memories, but none of his colleagues is happy to see him go.
Publisher Frank Teskey, who was to be out of town today, presented Lynch a beer (unopened) with a serving towel over his arm yesterday afternoon, along with gift certificates for Lynch's pau-hana farewell celebration today.
When someone like him leaves, "it's like a library is lost," Teskey said. The good news is that this library isn't going away, he said.
