HPR personality had loyal following

Elizabeth Janes-Brown / 1941-2007

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WAILUKU » Elizabeth Janes-Brown wrote people and entertainment columns for Maui newspapers and acted in community theater productions on the Valley Isle but was widely known statewide for her reports on Hawaii Public Radio.

Janes-Brown, also known as Liz Janes and Betty Green, died Monday on the Valley Isle after a nine-year battle with cancer. She was 66.

Janes-Brown, born in Halesworth, England, moved to the United States after her father died overseas during World War II and her mother remarried an American who had been stationed in England with the Army Air Corps.

She settled on Maui in 1960 and became a teacher at Seabury Hall, an actress in community theater, and a writer and radio personality.

Janes-Brown was a people columnist who wrote "Niele" for the Maui Sun, a morning talk-show host and news director for KNUI Radio, and staff writer and entertainment columnist who wrote "Let's Talk" for the Maui News.

"There was never a negative bone in her body that I saw," said David Hoff, editor of the Maui News.

"She showed a lot of courage in her last years, battling the illness."

Janes-Brown worked as a director in community theater and acted in a number of leading roles -- one of her most memorable in 2003 was a professor stricken with cancer, in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Wit."

"I remember her saying it was therapeutic for her," said Kayla Rosenfeld, news director for Hawaii Public Radio.

Rosenfeld said Janes-Brown, who was an on-air news stringer reporting information from the Maui News, had quite a following on the Valley Isle.

Rosenfeld said whenever Janes-Brown participated in a fundraising drive on behalf of Hawaii Public Radio, Maui people would call in pledges, and she would "just light up the phones."

"Maui people loved to hear her voice," Rosenfeld said.

The funeral service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday at St. John's Episcopal Church in Keokea, followed by a reception.

Janes-Brown is survived by husband Paul and daughter Juliet.

The family requests no flowers and that people carpool to the service in view of the limited church parking.