By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Former Governor George Ariyoshi is just back from a business trip to Asia. He's heading to a conference on the Big Island, and after that, he has another trip overseas. Now 78, Ariyoshi admits with a smile that he's almost busier these days than when he was governor.

This Sunday, Ariyoshi will stop moving long enough to receive Maryknoll School's Monsignor Charles Kekumano Award for a life devoted to service to others. The fund-raising dinner will be at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Ariyoshi and the late Kekumano were friends.

"We would call each other and talk about things," Ariyoshi said. "He was a sensible, down-to-earth person with very strong feelings for the community as a whole. He saw things about people and things that others didn't see. It was always refreshing to bounce ideas off him. He had a sense of what he thought was right, not just in terms of his religion, but in terms of fairness in the community."

Ariyoshi is president of Prince Resorts Hawai'i and is involved with a number of high-tech companies, including a medical research company working on revolutionizing cornea transplants. His hope is for a cornea transplant center to be located in Hawai'i.

"In everything you do, you have to think 10, 15, 20 years down the line," he said. That has always been a guiding principle for him, but it has taken on a new meaning these days.

One wall of his office on the 23rd floor of the First Hawaiian Bank building is full of pictures of his four grandchildren. Ariyoshi lights up when he talks about spending time with the kids — the oldest is 13, the youngest, a year old. He took them to the circus this weekend and he watches their baseball and soccer games. He recently had surgery to repair an arm he broke while helping one of the grandkids learn to ride a skateboard.

"I tell my oldest grandson I want him to have every opportunity to make a choice about what he wants to become in life. I don't want him to end up doing something because he was forced to do that because there was no other choice. My father used to tell me the same thing."

Ariyoshi said that is his hope for all of Hawai'i, that people will have opportunities and choices.

"Service to the community has to do with being a good steward. Have a good life, but be sure that those who come after you have the same opportunities and resources. Take what's there and try to make it better."

"It's the values of my parents' generation: otagai, mutuality; okagesamade, to depend on others and in prosperity, show appreciation," Ariyoshi said. "Obligation and responsibility and gratitude for what you have."

For more information on the Kekumano Dinner, call the school at 952-7310.

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