A.A. 'Bud' Smyser: competitor, conscience

Hawai'i lost a good part of its conscience and its collective memory yesterday with the death of long-time Honolulu Star-Bulletin editor A.A. "Bud" Smyser.

A true adopted son of the Islands, Smyser labored for well over half-a-century to keep Hawai'i both honest and informed. Like his predecessor, Riley Allen, Bud Smyser became synonymous with the quality journalism and the newspaper he loved.

For a generation of journalists both at the Star-Bulletin and elsewhere, he was both competitor and confidant. Smyser was also a dogged fighter for the causes he believed in, from statehood for Hawai'i (which he saw achieved) through unicameralism for the state Legislature (which never caught on) to his interest in death with dignity.

It would be a fitting tribute to the way Bud Smyser led his life and to his passing if Hawai'i lawmakers take a serious look at the work of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Living and Dying with Dignity, on which Smyser served.