Law enforcers find Hawai'i made to order
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
From Poland and Uganda, Australia, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Ireland and beyond, they took to Kalakaua Avenue yesterday morning.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
More than 500 enthusiastic, shouting law enforcement officers, athletes and associates from 14 countries and every state in America moved en masse through Waikiki for the 2002 Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics.
Tim Beaudoin, a policeman from Boise, Idaho, carries the torch in one of the legs of the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics. The Waikiki event yesterday was part of the International Conference for the Special Olympics, held in Hawai'i for the first time.
The runners snaked their way from the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel to the Dillingham Fountain at Kapi'olani Park and back to the Waikiki police substation — a distance of about three miles.
The annual Torch Run is the main event of the International Conference for the Special Olympics, which this year was held in Hawai'i for the first time.
More than 1,100 people attended the five-day conference, which draws civilian and military law enforcement agency representatives as well as Special Olympic coordinators from around the world.
The run/walk takes place every year in a different state within the various Special Olympics' regional districts. Last year Kansas, in Region 6, handed the torch off to Hawai'i in Region 10.
Yesterday, in turn, Hawai'i passed the torch on to Region 7, which includes San Francisco, which will host the Torch Run next year.
"It took us about five years to convince them to bring the conference to Hawai'i," said Melissa Blake, the Torch Run liaison for Special Olympics Hawai'i. "They thought it would be too expensive and too far away. Now that everybody's here, they're really glad they came."
"This is my first time in Waikiki, and I've enjoyed it very much," said Adi Reiter, a criminal investigator from Austria, who added that the experience was well worth the 54-hour round trip by air.
Debbie Bazan, a detective sergeant with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department, arrived with a contingent of more than five dozen people from Northern California.
"This is my very first time in Hawai'i," said Bazan, who cheered from the sidelines in order to save her strength for the afternoon's Canoe Challenge & Outrageous Games.
"I can't even imagine how any other city could outdo this," she said. "Everybody has been so friendly. They arranged lu'aus, horseback riding, meals — everything anybody wanted."
"The hospitality here has just been amazing," echoed Anita McGowan, a deputy sheriff from Aiken, S.C. Her husband, Bill, also a deputy sheriff, participated in the run while she nursed a knee that had undergone a recent operation.
Derek Fernandez, 34, a swimming athlete and member of the Special Olympics Hawai'i board of directors, said he'd never met so many law enforcement officers before.
"I think it is great for people to travel from all over and find out how we live in Hawai'i," said Sean Ellis of Nanakuli, the event keynote speaker and Special Olympics Gold Medal power lifter.
"It's also interesting to meet so many people from different countries. "Basically, everybody here accepts everybody. That's the power of the Special Olympics."
