SHARING MANA‘O
DMaui News, It has been over 13 years since my last love letter to you, on the occasion of my first “Sharing Mana’o” column. That letter, published in your January 12, 2011 issue, started with an enthusiastic “I’m back!” and fondly recounted our shared history, beginning with the first time my name appeared in your pages.
“I was 10 years old, just one of thousands of Maui kids you’d featured in local interest stories. You were 67 and the only game in town, albeit just twice a week back then. I still have the clipping from that issue—No. 11,420, October 4, 1967. Along with the article on my winning the Maui County Fair jingle contest, you ran a photo of Fair Director Garner Ivey presenting me with a $50 check and passes to the Fair. You even printed my jingle: ‘Fair time is fun time for every girl and boy; Fair time is happy time in Maui no ka oi!’ … I don’t know what else was on the front page of issue 11,420, because my mom didn’t keep the whole page, just my article and your banner. The subtitle ‘A Republican Newspaper’ was no longer part of your flag (as it had been for many decades), but stars and stripes marched across your logo, with the four islands of Maui County (Kahoolawe included) pictured inside one big star. Your subscription rate was $8 per year.
By the time I joined the Maui Publishing
Company family, which then included The Maui News, KMVI-AM, and the Printmasters printing business, you had moved up to a five-day-aweek schedule. Your editor-in-chief and KMVI general manager, Nora Cooper, hired me for a part-time announcer position. On that Sunday night in March 1975 when I did my first KMVI air shift, I was the only person in the Maui Pub Quonset huts. But on weekdays, when the paper was in production, all three businesses bustled with activity and a joyful energy.
Newspaper and radio coexisted like siblings; we loved each other even if we didn’t always get along, celebrated each other’s triumphs, tolerated the idiosyncrasies we didn’t understand. We were a blended family. Overseen with tough love by Mother Cooper, our diverse ‘ohana included the iconic Tanaka brothers, (managing editor) Earl and (sportswriter/news photographer) Wayne … The Maui media scene was a much smaller circle then. Ed Tanji was the Maui bureau of the Honolulu Advertiser, and Liz Janes started doing news at KNUI-AM around the same time I became news director at KMVI. Ron Youngblood was editor of the Maui Sun weekly, your first serious competitor. It was all friendly competition, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty when I left you after four years …
And now I’m coming home to you. We’ve both changed a lot in the last 30 years; you’ve been through a couple of ownership and management changes, I’ve been through a couple of husbands (three, actually) … But I have a feeling we’re going to pick up right where we left off. That’s how it is when you’re family.”
Your April 25 front page prompted me to reread that love letter and to write this one. At first, the double whammy of losing both the Maui Fair and your daily print version saddened me. Yet, as I near the age you were when we first met, I guess I’ve learned a little about coping with loss and accepting change.
You know what I mean. In 124 years, you’ve seen—and reported on—the demise or diminution of many institutions and traditions. Pillars of our community that we considered unshakable and, therefore, took for granted. From Aloha Lanes to Aloha Airlines, Maui Pine to HC&S, big retailers like Sears to family businesses like Home Maid Bakery, neighborhood Ku picnics to the Jaycees carnival, and, some might argue, common courtesy and mutual respect.
Each time your headlines proclaim the ”End of an era,” I’m reminded that nothing is permanent except change, and that’s why it’s important to acknowledge and appreciate what we have, while we have it. And when we lose it, rather than give in to sadness, anger, or bitterness, choose to cherish the memories.
That’s what I learned from my three marriages, two of which ended in divorce, the third in widowhood. And that’s why I’m writing this letter, to let you know that, even if you break my heart with your changes, I love you still and always will. We’re family. ■ Kathy Collins is a radio personality (The Buzz 107.5 FM and KEWE 97.9 FM/1240 AM), storyteller, actress, emcee, freelance writer, and proud Maui girl. Her email address is kcmaui913@gmail.com.