Posted on: Friday, August 20, 2004
Sen. Fong to lie in state in Hawai'i
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
The body of former U.S. Sen. Hiram Leong Fong will lie in state in the atrium of the State Capitol from Thursday night through Friday morning next week. Fong joins at least four other Hawai'i politicians and one revered Native Hawaiian singer who received the honor.
Fong's casket is set to arrive at the State Capitol at 6 p.m. Thursday, after which prayers and speeches are scheduled. The closed casket will be guarded until 8 a.m. next Friday, family spokeswoman Maureen Lichter said.
A public memorial service will then be held next Friday morning at Nuuanu Memorial Park & Mortuary, with a private burial to follow in the afternoon. The exact time of the public service was not set last night.
In the past 40 years or so, the bodies of at least five other people have lain in state in the Capitol: Gov. John A. Burns, U.S. Sen. Spark Matsunaga, state Sen. Larry Kuriyama, entertainer Israel "Bruddah Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole and U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink.
Organizers aren't certain how many people to expect next week. More than 1,000 mourners viewed Mink's casket in 2002. In 1997, more than 5,000 people visited Kamakawiwo'ole's body as it lay in state.
"Senator Fong had so many followers, and he touched so many lives," Lichter said. "It's a chance for the people of Hawai'i to come and pay their respects."
Francis Lum, chief of protocol for the governor's office, is helping to coordinate formalities at the State Capitol as he has for the past 37 years. The first lying in state he arranged was for Burns, who hired Lum in 1967.
Mink's service mandated strict guidelines dictating the order of the speakers, Lum said yesterday. Essentially, the members of Congress spoke in descending order of their congressional ranking.
"It's just like in the military," said Lum, a former Army chief warrant officer 4 who served a tour in Vietnam. "Rank has its privileges."
In some ways, Fong's memorial represents a slightly more complicated set of protocol questions than Mink's because Fong's political career spanned from the Territorial Legislature to the state House to the U.S. Senate. And he was no longer a sitting congressman when he died.
But while sitting at his desk yesterday in the governor's suite of offices at the Capitol, Lum shrugged off any difficulties.
"It's going to be a lot simpler than the ceremony for Patsy Mink," he said. "She was a sitting member of Congress, and there won't be all of these House members" coming to speak.
Tending to the details of honoring Fong began for Lum on Wednesday morning, just hours after Fong died at his home in 'Alewa Heights at the age of 97.
Lum made a series of unsuccessful calls to Washington, trying to figure out whether the U.S. flag should be flown at half-staff to honor Fong.
"The Hawai'i flag was no problem," Lum said. "But there was nothing I could find that said we could lower the U.S. flag for a former member of Congress."
He finally reached the executive clerk's office of the White House who said Lingle could order the U.S. flag lowered until Fong's burial.
As word of Fong's death spread yesterday, remembrances and condolences poured in to a special message board on The Advertiser's Web site.
Manny Lagod, now a resident of Lomita, Calif., wondered whether Don Ho and The Aliis would have become a popular Waikiki nightclub act in the 1960s and 1970s without Fong's indirect assistance.
Group members Lagod, Rudy Aquino, Ben Chong, Al Akana and Joe Mundo were in the Air Force for a four-year stint at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. They visited Fong for help in seeking an early discharge and he called on Eugene Zuckert, who was Air Force secretary.
"Three weeks later, we were back in Hawai'i, where we formed a union with Don Ho. If it wasn't for Hiram Fong, who knows if Don Ho and The Aliis would have ever come to past?"
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8085.
