It will be the last bon dance for Kahuku. After more than a hundred years of celebrating this tradition with the community, the congregation of the little Kahuku Hongwanji Mission has dwindled to about 30 people. Most are in their 80s. The youngest is 76.

Rev. Kevin Kuniyuki comes from Waialua once a month to hold a service at the old wooden temple tucked away along a dirt road behind Kahuku Superette. "I would be happy to hold a wedding here," he says, smiling. But that sort of celebration of 'beginning' hasn't happened here in a long time. The community is winding down. The old movie theater used to be nearby in what is now a grown-over lot. The pool hall was there, too, and a store and the club house. Now only some worn plantation houses hold stubbornly to the buffalo grass, and the clean blue-and-white two-story Hongwanji stands like a monument to days long gone.

"Communities arise and disappear," Kuniyuki said. "We don't have to see it as bad because it has nurtured people, and where the community background is valued, the spirit will continue."

Members of the Kahuku community, many who are not church members and not Japanese, have tried to keep the bon dance going as long as they could. This past Saturday, the Hongwanji members held an aloha party with the "young guys" who have helped them with the bon dance the last several years. The "young guys" — alumni of Kahuku High School classes of 1956, '57 and '58 — are all pushing 70. Since 2001, the Kahuku Alumni have set up the yagura, the tower in the center of the bon dance circle, and have manned the food booths.

"There were these guys almost 90 years old carrying the heavy wooden beams for the yagura all the way from the back," Renin Werner says, shaking his head. "We said eh, let us young guys do that."

Raymond "Buddy" Ako was the instigator. He was senior class president back in his day. At a gathering of classmates, he recalled the Kahuku bon dances of their youth, how the whole town showed up whether they belonged to the Hongwanji or not and enjoyed the night together.

"How come you folks don't do something?" he challenged. "You folks" turned into "us guys" and pretty soon, classmates were donating materials, forming committees and making plans.

Nancy Kunimitsu, head of the temple Ladies Group, recalled the food booths consisted of only hot dogs and saimin. When the Kahuku Alumni joined forces, they expanded the menu to plate lunch, Spam musubi, Kahuku corn-on-the-cob and teriyaki sticks. Hongwanji members cooked, too, like 92-year-old Pauline Taguma, who makes her famous nishime for all the dancers.

The Kahuku Alumni had to tread lightly, though. It wasn't their bon dance, and they had to learn procedures and ask permission at every step. When one classmate decided they could build a stronger, more modern yagura with metal pipes and support brackets, it took five meetings for the Hongwanji members to approve the change. In 2003, they decided the overhead power lines drooping from the temple fuse box to the yagura would be better underground, so the alumni asked permission and dug a trench to bury the lines.

The bon dance, traditionally a memorial for loved ones who have died in the last year, is a celebration of life. "They're with us when we dance," Kuniyuki explained. "We reaffirm the continuing relationship with our loved ones."

It has also served as a reaffirmation of community relationships, where religious and racial lines blur and "you guys" becomes "us guys" in the solidness of shared work and a common mission.

The last Kahuku bon dance will be held this summer, during obon season, on July 25.

Though everyone is determined to be stoic and even upbeat about the end, sometimes tears creep into eyes when recalling sweet childhood days of neighbors that took care of one another and honored each other's traditions.

"When I was in the Marine Corps, I got into situations that were ... tough," Werner says. "And during those times, where did my mind come back to? Home. Here."

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