Pa'auilo celebrates legacy
By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
PA'AUILO, Hawai'i — Plans to establish a community museum honoring the former plantation town of Pa'auilo will be the focus of a three-day reunion at the end of the month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pa'auilo School.
Located between Laupahoehoe to the south and Honoka'a to the north, Pa'auilo stood as a separate plantation for years before being merged into Hamakua Sugar Co., which went bankrupt in 1993.
The community has fewer than 1,000 residents who have turned mostly to cattle ranching. The school has 229 children in grades K-9.
The festivities will start at 4 p.m. March 30, at the school library, where there will be a video and a display of town memorabilia. That will be followed at 5 p.m. by a Hawaiian plate dinner and entertainment for the community.
The "Blue and White Fair" will run from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 31, on the school campus, followed by a talent show at the Hongwanji Hall from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
A planning session for the museum will be held at 9:30 a.m. April 1, in the former Pa'auilo Infirmary, which is being proposed to house the museum.
The infirmary served as a basic hospital when sugar was riding high, and later became a dispensary.
Although Pa'auilo's population has shrunk as its role as a sugar camp diminished, it is surviving as a cattle ranching region, with one of the state's few slaughterhouses nearby. Other business interests include a large 'awa plantation, a small garment factory that makes mu'umu'u, an aquaculture project and Edwin De Luz's hauling company that services a number of construction firms.
The old plantation manager's home now is the site of a Kamehameha Schools preschool for Hamakua children of Hawaiian ancestry.
Lifelong resident Clarence Souza, whose grandfather came to Hawai'i from Portugal to work in sugar, sees diversity of its economic base and residents as Pa'auilo's key to surviving in the new century.
Souza, a former high school coach, police commissioner and longtime ILWU figure, said the community's three churches — Buddhist, Catholic and Episcopal — and broad ethnic representation ensures the town will remain, even if sugar could not.
He said he has accepted that many breadwinners now have to drive 40 miles or more to resort jobs in South Kohala and North Kona, but their hearts remain in Pa'aulio.
Jasmine Bailado, the school's secretary, is helping organize the three-day event. For information, call her at (808) 776-7710.
Correction: A previous version of this story included an incorrect phone number.
