Awards

Advertiser Staff

Beamer wins cultural award

Duke's Waikiki recently honored Winona "Aunty Nona" Desha Beamer with its fifth annual Duke's Ho'okahiko award. The award recognizes one person each year who has made significant contributions to the culture and traditions of Hawai'i.

Throughout the years, she has played an integral role in the perpetuation of ancient Hawaiian song and dance. She is the matriarch of the musical Beamer family, a lifelong educator, author, composer and musician.

She continues to work to preserve the art of ancient hula and is currently re-creating research she once documented, including 242 distinct types of ancient hula.

Mediator takes lawyer honors

Daniel Bent received the "Lawyer as Problem-Solver" award from The Mediation Center of the Pacific. The award is given to a member of the legal profession who has exhibited extraordinary skills in either promoting the concept of lawyer as a problem solver or resolving individual, institutional, community, state, national or international problems.

Over the past few years, Bent, formerly a litigator and U.S. attorney for the state, has served as a mediator.

Bent continues to mediate regularly for The Mediation Center of the Pacific on a pro bono basis. He is also the newly appointed president of the Hawaii Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution.

EPA recognizes HECO program

The Hawaiian Electric Company's solar water heating program has once again received national recognition as 1,045 homeowners installed solar systems in 2003, meeting energy efficiency guidelines of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For the second year in a row, the EPA gave HECO an Energy Star for Homes Outstanding Achievement Award. HECO has sponsored 2,633 homes since joining the EPA program in April 2000. Homes receive a 35 percent state tax credit on the cost of installation, plus other rebates and incentives.

Across the state, almost one in four single-family homes use solar for their primary water-heating systems.