When she died covering a story 51 years ago, Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter Sarah Park was arguably the most popular, well-known journalist in Hawaii.

PROFILE                 Sarah Park         » Born: June 22, 1927         » Died: March 9, 1957, in a plane crash off Laie while covering a tsunami         » Education: American University, University of Hawaii         » Work experience: Covered stories in Korea, India, China and Indonesia for the International News Service and Reuters. Came to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1950 and covered the Korean War from December 1952 to March 1953. She went back to Korea and Japan in July and August of 1954.

At the age of 29, Park had been a foreign correspondent for two news services and covered a war and its aftermath. But she was just as widely known for her first-person feature stories—writing about being a taxi dancer for a night, diving for coins in Honolulu Harbor and posing as a blind woman on Hotel Street to see how passers-by would react.

When a tsunami warning was issued for the North Shore on March 9, 1957, Park sought to get a better view of the story. She called a friend, Paul O. Beam, and arranged for him to fly her and photographer Jack Matsumoto up to the North Shore. The plane crashed in the ocean off Laie, killing Park and Beam. Matsumoto survived.

Park's name will be added to the Journalists Memorial at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., in ceremonies this spring, along with the names of journalists killed this year.

The memorial honors journalists who have died reporting the news. There are 1,898 names etched in the glass walls of the memorial and listed on the Newseum's Web site.

“;It was really a dark day when that happened,”; said former Star-Bulletin reporter Tomi Knaefler. “;She just had this wonderful spirit of creating stories.”;

K.W. Lee, founding president of the Korean American Journalists Association, said he believes Park is the only Korean American whose name will be on the memorial.

He also said Park was also likely the first Korean-American journalist to cover a war and work for a news service and a metropolitan daily.

Her death “;is a great tragedy,”; Lee said. “;I feel smitten by a sense of sadness,”; he added. “;I wish I had known her.”;

Park also broke gender barriers in a time when there were few female reporters and fewer still who covered a battlefront.

Lyle Nelson, a former Star-Bulletin reporter who covered the Vietnam War for the paper, said Park's style was similar to Ernie Pyle's reporting in World War II.

“;She was with the troops doing what they do, seeing it the way they see it,”; said Nelson, who worked with Park at the Star-Bulletin.

When Park reported that the troops needed candles near the front, where there was no electricity, Hawaii residents started a “;Candles for Korea”; campaign which resulted in more than 150,000 candles being sent to troops to boost morale.

“;I think she definitely set a precedent,”; said KITV reporter Denby Fawcett, who was one of a handful of female reporters covering the Vietnam War.

“;I knew about her,”; Fawcett said. “;It was comforting to know that someone from Hawaii had done it before and was successful, someone who was respected and died bravely doing her work as a reporter.”;

In a letter to the editor after her death, Lt. Col. Arthur B. Chun said, “;Undaunted and without flinching, she stood side-by-side with men ... all under intense fire from the enemy. ... She walked their trails, their trenches, their rugged hills and witnessed their agonizing perilous moments.

“;She was more than a war correspondent or an observer: She was the understanding 'buddy' from home who appreciated everything anyone did.”;

Her tough reporting from Korea before the war led a Soviet magazine to label her and seven other American reporters as “;extra-gangsters of the pen”;—something she was proud of. The other reporters included Pulitzer-prize winning war correspondents Marguerite Higgins and Hal Boyle.

She was hired by the Star-Bulletin in 1950, covered the Korean War from the winter of 1952 through the spring of 1953 and returned to Korea and Japan in 1954.

Gene Mater, a communications consultant with the Newseum, said the journalism museum constantly looks to update the memorial list. He said a staff member at the journalism museum noticed Park's name in a newsletter for former United Press International reporters. The Newseum contacted the Star-Bulletin and, after confirming the circumstances of Park's death, began the process of adding her name to the Web site and the memorial itself.

Knaefler remembers Park as being an island girl who would go surfing before coming to the office.

“;Sarah was quite the fireplug in the newsroom,”; said former Star-Bulletin reporter Harriet Gee.

“;She was the little engine that could,”; Knaefler added. “;She was very brave.”;