Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

HH: That was when I was Chairman.
KM: About
HH: That was 1963 or ‘64.
KM: Wow, that’s interesting! I understand that Tom Vance really had an affiliation for the
mountain lands. He loved the views from that “Road to no where,” across to Mauna Kea
like that. Had you gone up to Mauna Kea at all in those earlier years in the ‘50s or ‘60s
HH: Yes. When we taught the first year, we liked to take our students around the various
places, and so we took a group, my husband’s 9 th grade students up to the old cabins
that were up there.
KM: Yes.
HH: The old stone cabins.
KM: Yes, the old Hale Pöhaku area.
Made her first trip to Mauna Kea around 1949:
HH: Hale Pöhaku, yes. We stayed over night, in fact, I remember trying to walk up, and I was
much younger, I tried to walk up to the snow which was, we were at about 9,000 feet,
maybe it was 10,000 or 11,000 feet, there was snow on the mountain.
KM: Wow!
HH: It was pretty rough, I never quite made it to the snow. [chuckling]
KM: Yes. Were you following a trail or just trekking along
HH: I think there must have been a trail, we couldn’t have gone over the rough lava.
KM: This would have been still in the ‘50s when you and your husband
HH: This would have been [thinking] in the early ‘50s probably or the late ‘40s, in fact it was
while my husband was teaching and he only taught one year.
KM: Okay.
HH: It was in the late ‘40s.
KM: Yes, late ‘40s. You folks, did you come out of Kona, on old Mämalahoa and turn up past
Waiki‘i
HH: Yes. We came up the Saddle Road that had been built by the military.
KM: The army, yes. It was pretty much paved right
HH: Yes.
KM: Interesting. So you folks stayed, what an experience for the students, to take them out in
the field. I bet not many teachers were doing those kind of activities.
HH: Not many teachers were doing anything, to take students. We took our students to Hilo to
see the circus, we felt that that kind of experience was more valuable than studying a
book.
KM: So when did you become the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors
HH: In 1962, I was elected.
KM: You must of just blown so many people away, I mean just mind boggling. To think, first
woman, and that you had come from afar also and fit in.
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:604