Fund drive begins for larger USS Arizona museum
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By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
The National Park Service received a $2 million check yesterday to start a fund-raising drive that will allow it to improve the USS Arizona Memorial Museum and Visitors Center.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
With excitement mounting for Monday's world premiere of "Pearl Harbor," a $137 million, special effects-laden film version of the attack, Hollywood executives were on hand for the fund-raiser's kickoff. The Walt Disney Motion Picture Group, makers of "Pearl Harbor," helped to create a public-service announcement for the fund-raiser.
Everett Hyland, 78, of 'Aiea Heights, and Herb Weatherwax, 84, were honored yesterday by the National Park Service at the USS Arizona Memorial and Visitors Center in a ceremony connected with the fund-raising drive to expand the tourist attraction. Participating in the ceremony, from left: Kathy Billings, Hyland, Weatherwax, Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, Richard Cook (behind Bay), Maile Alau and Daniel Martinez. The aircraft carrier USS John Stennis is in the background.
"It is impossible to be here and not be awestruck and humbled by the events that took place," said Richard Cook, chairman of the picture group. "All of us are proud of 'Pearl Harbor.' It is an intensely emotional film rooted in historical fact."
The USS Arizona Memorial Fund hopes to raise $10 million. Plans call for a 10,000-square-foot expansion that would double the size of the museum.
The $2 million handed over yesterday was drawn from sales at the bookstore of the visitor center.
A second check for $75,000 was given by Fox Entertainment, which is releasing a DVD version of the 1970 film "Tora, Tora, Tora." A portion of each sale of that DVD will go toward the fund drive.
Maile Alau, executive director of the fund-raiser, said the current facility is not up to the task of serving its 1.5 million visitors a year. The museum lacks the space to tell the complete story of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, Alau said.
"People visit the museum because it is a place of a power, a portal to the past," Alau said at a news conference on the lawn of the visitors center. "This is a place for future generations to visit those of the past, to find solace."
