By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Just a decade ago, the only place on Maui to stage a play was at the Baldwin High School Auditorium. A generation ago, the only place to take ballet class was at the Old Wailuku Gym (which was called "old" even in the 1970s). The only place to see a live concert was at the Lahaina Tennis Stadium.

Not that there was anything wrong with those places, but each had limitations and it was more of that "making do with what we got" Neighbor Island folks get used to.

Masaru "Pundy" Yokouchi wanted more for Maui. He wanted a place where people like himself (and after everything he's done in his life, he still thinks of himself as a "regular guy") could go to study art, enjoy great artists and share their own creative works.

Yokouchi, who will be 80 this year, has served as chairman of the Maui Arts & Cultural Center board for 20 years. He was instrumental in raising the money to build the center. He signed on as a volunteer when the theater, classroom, concert and gallery space was just a wild wish, a big dream for a little island. To him, that dream was already very familiar.

Yokouchi was drawn to the arts ever since he was a kid. As he tells it, kindergarten was his best year in school because it was all about learning through singing, dancing, storytelling and painting. As art became less and less a part of the curriculum, school was never as much fun.

Yokouchi grew up in Wailuku, the youngest child of immigrant parents who ran a bakery. After a stint in the Army, Yokouchi was in line to bake cakes for the family business, but ended up trying his hand at Maui's brand-new real estate industry.

The story of his first home sale has become the allegory of his life. The day that he got his first commission check, he spent the whole thing, $1,000, on two paintings. His young wife cried. It was more than he made at the bakery in three months. For Yokouchi, art is as essential as food and rent. Art is a staple.

His volunteer work with both the MACC and as long-time chairman of the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts has been fueled by that belief.

This Saturday, the Maui Arts & Cultural Center says an official mahalo to Yokouchi in a lavish tribute dinner. Event organizers had been trying for years to honor Yokouchi with such an event, but he would have nothing of it. It was all too much fuss and attention.

They finally got Yokouchi to agree by framing the event as a fund-raiser for the MACC. Tickets range from $250 to 500 a plate and have been sold out for weeks. It's a lot of fuss for a man who doesn't like that sort of thing, but it'll mean more art for Maui, and in Yokouchi's eyes, that's a quality-of-life issue for the "regular guys" like himself.

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