honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, August 22, 2003

EDITORIAL
Duke Kahanamoku was the best of Hawai'i

In a time when the label "legendary" is attached to every celebrity with a hit movie or No. 1 record, it is worth reflecting on what that term really means.

Duke Kahanamoku, who would have been 113 years old on Sunday, was one of those rare human beings who truly deserves the title.

Kahanamoku, graceful, dignified and awesomely athletic, represented everything that is best about Hawai'i to the rest of the world. His participation in four Olympics and his role in resurrecting the modern art of surfing will be forever remembered.

Duke's memory is being celebrated today through Sunday in the second annual Duke's Ho'olaule'a in Waikiki. The festival, which includes a three-leg ocean "waterman's challenge," a surfboard water polo contest, food and entertainment, is a fund-raiser for the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Foundation scholarship program.

Attend if you can. If not, try in your own small way to emulate the characteristics that made Duke Pahoa Kahanamoku worthy of the accolade legendary.