Hawai'i Kai assembling 50-year time capsule

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer

HAWAI'I KAI — Residents 50 years from now will get a glimpse of life in Hawai'i Kai as it is today when they open a time capsule stuffed with pictures, letters, proclamations and vital statistics on the community.

This is the vision of resident Murray Luther and his committee of four. They want the capsule to be buried at the new sign the city is building at the corner of Hawai'i Kai Drive and Kalaniana'ole Highway.

"The time capsule is to show what we were doing here now," said Luther, 86. "To show what Hawai'i Kai was like in 2002. Fifty years from now, people will have something to look at, to compare, to see if there's been any progress."

The committee is going to schools, churches, service groups and shopping centers asking them to submit things for the capsule, which will be buried at the base of the new Hawai'i Kai sign in August, Luther said.

The capsule will be buried in a concrete box with Styrofoam surrounding the capsule, Luther said. The committee has yet to figure out what form the information will take, whether on disc or in an album.

The city began construction on the sign in March, three years after the community asked for an identification sign to replace one removed to make way for the widening of Kalaniana'ole Highway in the mid-1990s.

Construction on the new sign should be completed by June.

Just last year, Koko Marina Shopping Center opened a time capsule that had been buried for 25 years. In it were photos, proclamations and other tidbits of life in Hawai'i Kai. The pictures, however, did not survive, said JoAnn Mau, shopping center general manager.

"When we exhumed it, the photos were ruined," Mau said. "There were newspaper articles, pictures, a Pogo Poge hat (from the Hawai'i-produced children's "Checkers and Pogo" TV show), knick knacks and a declaration signed by the governor and all the people who attended."

The center also plans to bury a new time capsule, Mau said, and will offer its assistance to the committee.

Mary Houghton, a member of the Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board who is helping with the time capsule program, recently met with area principals to talk about involving schools in the time capsules. Luther will go to the Hawai'i Kai Marina Association today to seek its participation, too.

The capsule, Luther said, is to be a community-wide event.

"It's all about community," he said.

To participate in the time capsule programs call 395-5116 or 396-8506.

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.