Posted on: Sunday, May 1, 2005
Campbell grads cheer yesteryear
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
'EWA BEACH — Campbell High School alumni from the 1960s to the '80s took themselves back to the days of the Average White Band, Checkers and Pogo and fields of sugar cane stretching across the 'Ewa Plain yesterday as some 200 heavier and grayer graduates turned out for a multigeneration, multiclass reunion at their old skip-school hideout, 'Ewa Beach Park.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser But Montayre lives in 'Aiea and hasn't been back to 'Ewa Beach since 1989. So she was stunned yesterday by all of the changes.
"I cried," Montayre said as the Eagles greatest hits blared over the public address system. "I thought 'Ewa Beach will always be 'Ewa Beach. But it's all housing, no more cane. It was too overwhelming."
Despite all of the changes to both waistlines and property values, there were screams of recognition from classmates who hadn't seen one another in more than 20 years.
Others, mostly those still living in 'Ewa Beach, bump into one another almost every day.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Santa Monica particularly appreciated that so many of her old friends had turned gray.
"We all match," Santa Monica said. Then she jerked her head toward her friends, sisters Sophia Bucao, class of '77, and Phyllis Anguay, class of '74. "Except for some of us who color their hair."
Anguay remembered lazy days hanging out at the 'Ewa Beach Bakery before it became Flo's.
"Once in a while she went to class," Santa Monica said.
As Anguay preferred to remember, "I was the security for the (school) parking lot. I had to check out the shadiness of the trees."
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Newcomb, who now works as a corrections officer at 'Oahu Community Correctional Center, married Terri Silva, class of '82, and has been to bad and good reunions in the past. One of the best included alumni from the classes of '78 to '84.
Other Campbell High graduates found out how much fun they had "and they said, 'How come you nevah invite us?' " Newcomb said.
So he and Gaui did.
Using e-mail, word-of-mouth and classmates.com, they received responses from as far away as Afghanistan.
Even though they went to school at different times, the former students found yesterday that they share common memories.
"Whenever you said you went to Campbell, people say, 'Ho, 'Ewa Beach? That's out in the boonies,' " said former cheerleader Tammy Kinningham, class of '78. "We may have been out in the boonies, but that school was always one big ohana."
Her best friend was — and remains — the former Julianne Yorong, class of '78, now Julianne Seno.
Kinningham's daughter, Kendra Kinningham, 19, is due to have a baby in August. The father is Seno's son, Justin Seno, 22.
Sharon Reyes, class of '79, remembered how one of her best friends and classmates, Roberta Torralua, used to stand up to the boys going back to grade school.
"Nobody messes with my girls," Torralua said, as the sound of the Beatles played in the background.
Jo-Lianne Moikeha, formerly Jo-Lianne Hall, listened in on the conversation, then sat back in her beach chair.
"Every time we get together," she said, "it's wonderful."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
Lillian Montayre, class of '79, works as a title examiner and knew that subdivisions have replaced King Sugar as 'Ewa Beach's main crop these days.
Phyllis Anguay, left, and sister Sophia Bucao look over a 1976 James Campbell High School yearbook at a reunion at 'Ewa Beach Park.
"We're all 'Ewa Plantation girls," said Camilla Santa Monica, a Campbell High songleader from the class of '74. "We all knew each other from small kid time."
Sharon Reyes, top right, clowns around with former Campbell High School classmate Liliann Say during yesterday's reunion at 'Ewa Beach Park. Both women represented the Class of '79.
The idea to invite 30 different classes to one reunion came from 1981 classmates Poyer Gaui and Dale Newcomb.
Classmates from the James Campbell High School class of 1981 got their picture taken yesterday during the multiyear reunion at 'Ewa Beach Park.
