By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

After 46 years as a teacher, Earlene Albano doesn't mince words with her students.

"We are going to take a break now," she tells her 40 Nanaikapono elementary school chorus members. "You're not going to run around. You're not going to play ball. You're not going to chase anything. If there's a fight, you'll both be expelled. Do you understand?"

They do. They nod.

Albano has directed the chorus, called Na Leo O Nanaikapono, for 28 of the past 30 years. There was a period of two years in the early 1980s after her husband died when she stopped for a while. "I kind of fell apart," she says. When Albano wasn't there, there was no chorus.

And that's what folks in Nanakuli are worried about now.

Albano is 71 years old and this time, after several attempts, she says she's going to make good on a promise to herself to retire.

Sort of.

She retired from the classroom in 1988 but has continued to work 15 hours a week as a music resource teacher.

Leading the after-school chorus program three days a week, two hours a session, is all on her own time.

Albano says her health just won't allow her to keep going.

She leans against a music stand to take attendance and calls out a name for which there is no response.

"Where is she?" she asks the children.

"She threw up in her classroom," comes the answer.

Albano seizes the opportunity for a lesson.

"Have I ever told you what to do if you feel sick during chorus? You head for the grass as soon as possible. Don't stay on the risers. Go. Don't ask questions. Go out to the grass. Go directly to the grass. We'll come get you later."

Albano is dressed in a purple flowered shorty mu'u. She wears white ankle socks and black New Balance athletic shoes with orthodics inside. She has had operations for torn tendons and she can't dance hula barefoot anymore. Her hands are on her hips supporting her achy back. She can't see well out of her left eye, something she hopes will be fixed by two surgeries in January. The vision problem has made her unsteady on her feet and she says she has fallen several times lately.

But her voice is strong, her hair is beauty shop perfect and she has an answer for every little hand that goes up with a question.

"My dress has a hole," says a small girl with a worried look on her face. Na Leo has Christmas concerts coming up and old costumes from years past are being re-fitted for the current members.

"Where's the hole?" Albano wants to know.

"On the bottom."

"How big?"

The girl makes a circle with her hands about the size of a manapua.

"Did you bring your dress today?"

The girl shakes her head no.

"Make sure you bring your dress back because if you don't, you're going to have to wear it, hole and all."

The girl nods, very serious.

A year ago, Albano tried again to retire from the chorus but parents and the Na Leo booster club persuaded her to stay on, at least until they found a replacement.

But it's clear, she's irreplaceable.

She takes students as young as first grade and welcomes back former Na Leo members who are now in high school but can't bear to leave her.

She arranges the music for two-part harmony and teaches the kids to be narrators, directors, musicians and dancers.

Albano teaches Hawaiian language through music and hula, but she herself is not Hawaiian and didn't grow up here.

She grew up in Oregon and went to college at Lewis and Clark and the University of Oregon. She met and married a man from Hawai'i and moved to the Islands in 1954. Albano got her teaching credentials from the University of Hawai'i and studied hula, Hawaiian music and other ethnic music and dance forms at the budding ethnomusicology department at Manoa. She studied hula and chant with Eleanor Hiram Hoke, a contemporary of Iolani Luahine. Dorothy Kahananui Gillett was her mentor.

Back then, she says she "bumped into a lot of prejudice being a haole studying and teaching Hawaiian music, language and dance. Now, I've been in this community so long, I'm just a fixture."

"A lot of these kids now, I had their parents in school. In some cases, their grandparents. You kind of recycle when you've been here so long."

Kukui Maunakea-Forth is one of those parents. She was Albano's student in the 1970s. Now her son and daughter are in Na Leo.

"I'm a single mom so I cannot afford music lessons, I cannot afford 'ukulele and yet we love to sing in our community," Maunakea-Forth says. "She teaches them music and 'ukulele and I'm amazed. My son picks up the ukulele and he plays every day, whenever he gets the chance. It's a gift, what she does for the kids. There's no amount of money that can account for it. It's genuine love and concern for our children."

The love and concern comes out in all the volunteer hours and the excellence she expects from the chorus members. It's clear, though, that Albano is on the surface, not a softy. She's a straight-shooting, no-nonsense teacher with clear standards.

"What are you doing, surfing? Don't slide into the note. Don't think that you can be careless just because my ears aren't that good anymore," she tells the chorus.

The kids sing an earnest rendition of "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" in Hawaiian. When they hold a note, you can see a batch of tongues bright blue from eating candy.

Even though she's really going to really this time, Albano is hedging. She says she'll probably agree to substitute teach and she's willing to come back and train the next director of Na Leo. If that magic person can ever be found. Albano's black orthodic shoes are going to be hard to fill.

It has to be someone who can teach Hawaiian music and dance, or if they only know Western music, be willing to learn. It has to be someone who can volunteer six or more hours a week, deal with fund raising and organizing Christmas and spring concerts. It has to be someone who can turn the echoing school cafeteria into a serious after-school rehearsal hall.

"If there's someone out there, tell them give me a call," Albano says. Her number is 696-7365. "It's OK," she says. "Put that number in the paper and tell them to call. I have caller ID."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Correction: Dorothy Kahanaui Gillett was Nanakuli chorus teacher Earlene Albano's mentor. Albano did not study hula with Gillett. A previous version of this column contained incorrect information.