Island People
'Pinky' Thompson to be honored for life of service

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer

The barren slopes of Niu Valley stretch out above the rambling Thompson compound, and the wind cuts through dry kiawe. Next to the canoe house, a lazy golden retriever ambles over, wagging at newcomers.

Myron B. "Pinky" Thompson plunks his bass during a family music night. Photo by David Miyamoto of Visual Impressions, courtesy of Thompson family Myron B. "Pinky" Thompson AGE: 77 NICKNAME: Thompson's mother was so convinced she was carrying a girl she decorated the baby's room completely in pink, and bought a load of pink baby clothes. Myron has been known as Pinky ever since. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Executive director of Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center, 1962-67; state administrator for Gov. John. A. Burns, 1967-70; chaired Land Use Commission; executive director of the state Department of Social Services and Housing, 1970-74; Bishop Estate trustee, 1974-1994; helped found Alu Like and Papa Ola Lokaha, the Native Hawaiian Health Care System, in the mid-1980s; led the Polynesian Voyaging Society, from 1979-2001 MEETING HIS WIFE: In ninth-grade study hall at Punahou School, a note was handed to the new kid. It read: "Hi, you're cute. I'm Laura and I'm sitting in the row next to you five seats back." They dated through high school, and were married as he finished his bachelor's degree after World War II. EDUCATION: Undergraduate degree in sociology from Colby College in Maine; master's degree in social work from the University of Hawai'i Polynesian Voyaging Society fund-raiser Honoring Myron "Pinky" Thompson When: From 5 p.m. Sept. 15 at Lanikuhonua, Ko Olina Resort, the Campbell Estate property next to Paradise Cove Tickets: $250 each Call: PVS at 536-8405

This bustle of activity is nothing new. For years, the Thompson household has been a haven for friends, neighborhood kids and acquaintances in need. For years Laura Thompson has cooked up a Sunday pot of stew big enough to feed a couple dozen folks.

"My family and Pinky's family all had extended-family kinds of things, and we just carried on," said Laura Thompson who took in kids with problems as readily as her three children took in pets.

"We bought a replica of an old opium bed — a huge big pune'e," she says, "and I can remember Myron running out one day and saying, 'Mom, we can sleep 21 without anyone being on the floor!' And so we did."

At the center of all of this is a trim, white-haired man who has been patriarch of the clan even as he was making a lasting mark in his community.

For the past three decades, Myron "Pinky" Thompson has been a force for change in both state government and programs for native Hawaiians.

He's the visionary who helped create the Hawaiian Health Care System; who stepped forward in the late 1970s to refocus efforts of the Polynesian Voyaging Society; who helped create Alu Like to funnel federal money toward native Hawaiians in five priority areas: job training, health, housing, education and native rights.

"When he worked for Gov. (John A.) Burns he did a lot of traveling to Washington because the governor didn't like to travel," said Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs. "... Thus began the march for Hawaiian programs and the effort to secure support for services for native Hawaiians through federal funds."

By the late 1990s, Alu Like was pulling in $15 million a year in federal money.

As a Bishop Estate trustee from 1974-1994, Thompson helped develop early childhood education programs that were canceled in the late 1990s.

The cancellations became kindling for the Bishop Estate (now the Kamehameha Schools) firestorm that followed.

Next Saturday night, he will be honored by the Polynesian Voyaging Society at its annual fund-raising dinner.

"If there's one person who has devoted his life to make people better, however you define that, Pinky fits the bill," said Hardy Spoehr, executive director of Papa ola Lokahi, the Native Hawaiian Health Care System. "He's had tremendous impact in the community."

When Thompson rises to speak, he may move more slowly than friends remember. He's in chemotherapy treatment for a pre-leukemia blood condition doctors have told him is life-threatening. Still, it hasn't stopped him from going forward.

Just a few days ago, he consulted with Sen. Daniel Inouye's office on the "Akaka Bill," which he sees as a pivotal next step in the ongoing process of reclaiming Hawaiian pride. "Community improvement is the most important focus," he says. "Health, job security, educational achievement. Anything to assist our people to be more productive. And education is the most important tool."

Settling into his favorite rocker, he can look far up the valley that once held an ill-fated family cabin. After the family toted lumber a mile on foot, and the three kids stocked it with canned food, the shack was destroyed by a whirlwind. "There were 'Beanie Weenies' all over the valley for months," chuckles Laura.

Though Thompson's own small-kid days were equally flamboyant, they also set the tone for a life-time of service. His parents, Irmgard Harbottle, a school teacher, and Henry Nainoa Thompson, an accountant, raised a dozen foster children who became like brothers and sisters. He grew up listening to their hurt and anger.

"I began to hear the depression in these guys," he said. "Instead of dealing with the problem verbally, they reached out physically to hurt someone else."

His upbringing also carried conflicting cultural overtones. Though named a sacred "kapu child" by his grandfather, as a boy Thompson felt mixed messages about his ancestry. His mother never said no to him ("she always said 'We shall try,'" he remembers) and though he knew there was something special about his life, he also felt confusion.

"I was growing up in two different worlds. I was a Hawaiian, and felt I should be proud of it, but Hawai'i was dominated by the western system that conveyed that we were inferior.I got the message 'You're not good enough, and yet, you can be if you work hard,'" he said.

Thompson developed a powerful sense of personal responsibility to make a difference, partly as the result of a severe World War II injury.

Thompson spent two years recovering from a head wound suffered in the aftermath of the second assault on Normandy Beach in the last push against the Nazis. In the months of recovery, there was time for introspection.

With his eyes bandaged, his son Nainoa says, his father found inner vision.

"My dad has a tremendous sense of pride in being Hawaiian and a quiet rage about what has happened to the Hawaiians in the last 200 years," said the Hokule'a navigator and newly named Kamehameha Schools trustee. "I think a lot of Hawaiians have that sense of injustice. But he's turned that rage around and been able to direct it in ways to help the Hawaiian people. Any of us can stand up and say we're angry, but how many can symbolize that turnaround?"

With a master's degree in social work, his dad rose to head Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center before being tapped by Burns to be administrative director, head the newly formed state Land Use Commission and later the Department of Social Services and Housing.

At every juncture, Thompson pushed to find the programs to provide the best intervention, convinced that providing services like early childhood education could derail a multitude of problems later.

Winona Rubin, a longtime social activist who, with Thompson, was one of the architects of the native Hawaiian health and social service agency Alu Like, estimates the programs he helped create touched 100,000 Native Hawaiians.

With a roster of successes to his credit, it's the accomplishments of the Polynesian Voyaging Society canoe Hokule'a over the past two decades that now resonate in his heart.

Throughout the Pacific, Thompson has seen a resurgence of kinship and spirit through the revival of traditional voyaging.

"It has rebuilt the culture and the values," he says. "I call it the healing of the pain of western colonization. This is the most satisfying thing I have inside of me — this healing of the pain."

Correction: The name of Myron "Pinky" Thompson's daughter, Lita, was inadvertently omitted during the editing process.