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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, August 12, 2003

New role planned for Mink's old school

By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor

HAMAKUAPOKO, Maui — A Maui group wants to honor the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink by rebuilding her former high school, now in ruins, as a job training center for prison inmates and drug rehabilitation clients who are re-entering society.

The Old Maui High School in Hamakuapoko is being cleaned up for restoration as the Patsy T. Mink Center in honor of the late U.S. representative who attended the school.

Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser

A cleanup effort led by the county's Community Work Day Program began last month, with more than 85 volunteers and donated equipment, trucks and professionals clearing overgrowth and rubble from the empty concrete and wood shells that make up the old administration and classroom buildings.

An ad hoc group called the Friends of Old Maui High is preparing to establish a nonprofit agency and is making plans for how the Patsy T. Mink Center will be used. The history of the buildings is being researched, and organizers are contacting alumni, businesses and community groups for support.

The planning began well before the congresswoman's death in September, said Community Work Day executive director Jan Dapitan. But Mink's passing last year, at age 74, hardened the resolve of those involved in the project to make it happen, she said.

"She was the president of the student body, valedictorian of her class, and a person who fought her entire life for people who most need this kind of help. It represents her spirit and her ability to work with the community," Dapitan said.

What remains of the Old Maui High School in Hamakuapoko, which opened in 1913, is largely abandoned except for a few offices used by agencies that are packing up to relocate. Some of the buildings still standing were erected in the 1920s; others no longer present succumbed to fire and neglect.

The 24-acre site is owned by the state but managed by the county under executive order. The property was leased to the University of Hawai'i's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.

Plans for new Maui center

For more information on the planned Patsy T. Mink Center, call Dapitan (808) 877-2524.

The campus site, surrounded for miles by sugar cane fields, is the last remaining landmark of the Hamakuapoko plantation camp. The school closed when a new Maui High campus opened in Kahului in 1972.

Mink, who was born in nearby Pa'ia, was a 1944 Maui High graduate.

Frank Domingo, 74, of Ku'au, grew up with Mink in the Hamakuapoko camp and graduated from the school in 1947. While he was a student, Domingo worked as a campus janitor. He said he appreciates the beauty and history of the old campus, which turned out a number of distinguished alumni in addition to Mink.

He said he was disheartened when the campus was abandoned and left to deteriorate over the years.

"It looks real bad, but it's got to be restored," Domingo said. "A lot of people think it's not worth it. The main building structure is strong. People with good engineering minds built that building.

"As janitor of that school, I used to go underneath that school building, and those beams are solid. The way they did it in the old days, they threw the lumber in the ocean. I couldn't find any termites."

Renovation costs prevented previous efforts by an assortment of groups to use the old campus, Dapitan said. At one time it was even considered as a homeless shelter. Rough estimates place the cost of developing the Patsy T. Mink Center at $5 million to $8 million. That does not include the cost of running the training programs.

A variety of human service agencies on Maui determined a need for life skills and job programs for inmates and drug rehabilitation clients making the transition to living in the community, Dapitan said.

No one agency has been pegged to operate the Mink Center programs, and they will probably be run by a combination of groups, she said.

Planners envision offering training in agriculture, the building trades, woodworking, handicrafts and other fields. Some of the training could even involve renovating parts of the old campus, according to Dapitan.

The project has a least one important supporter: During a Maui visit yesterday, U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye said he was determined to find financing through government and/or community sources.