Posted on: Friday, December 28, 2001

Editorial
'Pinky' Thompson was admired public servant

It is not just the Hawaiian community that mourns the passing of Myron B. "Pinky" Thompson. His service to his state and his nation was every bit as vital.

But he was a lion in service to his fellow Hawaiians and an icon in the renaissance of that native culture. While he fought social norms that seemed to peg Hawaiians as inferior, he held that the most important obstacle to one's success was between one's very own ears.

Having very nearly lost his life in 1944 on the beachhead at Normandy, he went on to become an important figure in state government as a protege of Gov. John A. Burns. As executive director of the state Department of Social Services and Housing and the first chairman of the state's Land Use Commission, Thompson set in motion government policies and practices that endure today.

He helped found Alu Like and Papa Ola Lokahi, the Native Hawaiian Health Care System, both vital in the lives of Hawaiians today.

He made important strides in education as a trustee of Bishop Estate, where he helped to develop the early childhood education programs that — when later trustees discontinued them — kindled a revolution in that powerful institution. Again, the benefit from restoration of these programs extends far beyond the Hawaiian community.

In leading the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Thompson was in large part responsible for the astonishing force of the Hawaiian renaissance, which projected a revival of music, hula and language to the far corners of Polynesia.

He will be sorely missed by a grateful Hawai'i.