By Anne Harpham

As a former religion writer, I know a couple of things about stories on membership numbers for churches.

And foremost among the things I have learned is that denominations have different methods of counting membership. And research groups who study those numbers also may use methodology that differs from those of the denominations themselves.

We received phone calls from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over an Associated Press story about the growth in church membership from 1990 to 2000. That story showed Mormon membership in 2000 at 4.2 million.

One caller said that as of the end of 2001, the church reported a membership of 5.3 million. While acknowledging the story was talking about an earlier time, he doubted the church had grown by more than a million members in a year, so he still thought the 2000 figure in the story was too low.

Perhaps, but it was the number the church headquarters in Salt Lake City reported to the researchers for this particular study, done by the Glenmary Research Institute.

And the Associated Press told us that the Glenmary rankings differ from those of other researchers not just for the Mormons, but also for Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox and others.

In February, the 2002 yearbook on religious affiliation was released. It is compiled annually by the National Council of Churches. In that report, the Mormon church was listed with 5.2 million members and ranked among the nation's five largest religious bodies. However, that study did not include the nation's largest black denomination, the National Baptist Convention, and also omitted Judaism and Islam.

We're committed to accurately reporting on this issue as best we can. But we and readers need to keep in mind that churches measure their membership differently, and researchers employ different methods to calculate membership.

When is the state fish not the state fish? When it's the humuhumunukunukuapua'a.

The humu was selected official state fish in 1985 for a five-year term, and the law designating its official status was automatically repealed in 1990. A subsequent effort to name another state fish fizzled.

One might wonder why the state's official Web site lists the humu as the state fish. But the Hawai'i Revised Statutes and the Department of Land and Natural Resources are quite clear: There is no official state fish.

So an item in Lou Boyd's column Monday, on the pronunciation of the small fish's long name, was doubly wrong, and a subsequent correction was only partially right. We corrected the spelling in "Getting it Straight" but failed to note that the humumunukunukuapua'a is the former state fish and no longer enjoys official status.

Our most recent community editorial board recently concluded its six weeks of regular Wednesday meetings with members of The Advertiser's editorial board.

Our discussions ranged widely, from municipal issues such as trash disposal to global issues of peace and war.

Our members this time were:

Marsha Rose Joyne		Jim Frolich
"Gus" Gustavson		Shaun Mukai

• Jim Frolich, vice president and Pacific regional manager for The Environmental Company Inc. of Honolulu. In that post, he cleans up contaminated sites for the military and state agencies and serves as an environmental consultant.

• "Gus" Gustavson, today a "semi-retired" management and leadership consultant. But before that, he served for 30 years in the Navy, retiring in 1995 as a rear admiral.

• Shaun Mukai, a business and corporate lawyer with a local law firm. He has a strong interest in local and international politics.

Anne Harpham is The Advertiser's senior editor and reader representative. Reach her at 525-8075 or aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com.