Jerry Hucks, archery enthusiast, dead at 67
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau
Jerry Hucks, a Hawai'i Kai resident who prodded City Hall to support an archery facility at the Koko Head Rifle Range, died of lung cancer Thursday at his home. He was 67.
Hucks was a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who came late to the sport of archery, said Estelle Hucks, his wife of 42 years.
It was about 14 years ago while helping a Boy Scout troop that Hucks decided to take up the bow and arrow. Once he mastered the sport, he got his children into it, then his grandchildren, Estelle Hucks said. Hucks also became a volunteer instructor at Koko Head District Park, teaching archery to youngsters.
"He was always involved in anything to do with kids," Estelle Hucks said yesterday. "He liked everything to be a teaching experience."
Seeing a need for proper facilities, Hucks lobbied the city and became a Vision Team champion to get a facility built in Hawai'i Kai so that more people could participate in archery. He won the support of the Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board and the city Parks and Recreation Department, which agreed to put an archery facility at the Koko Head Range.
Hucks insisted that the facility be simple — a carport cover for archers to take their marks and a storage shed to store the bull's-eyes. He also insisted that members of the 24-member Koko Head Archery Club help build it.
For years archers have been confined to the eastern portion of Kapi'olani Park below the La Pietra-Hawaii School for Girls campus. But the city has been concerned about stray arrows, which at times have landed in neighboring tennis courts.
Money to build the Koko Head archery facility was approved recently as part of the 2002 city budget. A construction date has not been set.
"His only regret was that he wouldn't live to see the first shovel dig into the earth at the facility," Estelle Hucks said.
A memorial service will be at 7 p.m. today at Kilohana United Methodist Church in Niu Valley. Inurnment will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.
