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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, January 21, 2002

Ala Wai event revives past to aid needy of the present

Paddlers start the canoe race at the 17th annual Ala Wai Challenge. The Sheraton Waikiki-Royal Hawaiian Hotels team won the race and overall event.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

With paddles flashing on the Ala Wai, rainbow-hued pigeons soaring aloft through rain-slashed skies, and children cheering old Hawaiian games, Waikiki yesterday was once again a place where neighbor cares for neighbor.

"Go, go!" yelled Jocelyn Hayashi, clanging a cowbell as her firm's outrigger canoe racing team churned the gray-green waters.

The 17th annual Ala Wai Challenge, a quarter-mile fun race on the old canal, raised thousands of dollars to help Waikiki Community Center bring people out to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and nourish one another.

The event's overall winner yesterday was the Sheraton Waikiki-Royal Hawaiian Hotels team.

Herb Nahinu, a brawny paddler from Kailua, slung a 16-pound ball down a grassy course with a mighty groan in the pohaku ho'okaika, the stone throw, as the makahiki began nearby.

The events honored Wright Bowman Sr., the 94-year-old master canoe builder, who yesterday remembered Waikiki as duck ponds reached by trolley car, and the late Myron B. "Pinky" Thompson, president emeritus of the Polynesian Voyaging Society whose sailing canoes retraced the migration routes that brought Hawaiians to the Islands more than a thousand years ago.

"It's tough to speak for your dad," said Thompson's son Myron, "but I know that he would be smiling right now, happy that people are carrying on."

Leinik Ayau, 9, was happy that people were supporting the center pre-school she attended from infancy, "where I learned to walk."

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawai'i), said the event was all about "tradition, values, heritage — and aloha, which brings together what is separated and makes us whole."

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.