Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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right way, I guess it was. But he was completely behind me, because we were just both
interested in politics.
That’s amazing! May I ask, your husband’s name
He was William Jennings Hale, Jr. His father was William Jasper Hale or something.
Your husband must have passed away a long time
My husband was a very brilliant man. He got his Masters Degree at Columbia at 16, he
was the youngest person to ever get a Masters Degree. That was because his father ran
the school, and pushed him through school to prove that that little Black School was as
good as anybody else.
Yes.
He was a brilliant man.
When did he pass away
He passed away in… [thinking] Gee I don’t know, we had been divorced by that time. It
was in the ‘70s.
Okay. I didn’t come up here and start working at Hawaii Volcanoes until ’78, and I’d only
known you.
He wasn’t there anymore, I wasn’t married by that time. He remarried too and he lived in
Kona and they moved back from Tennessee, he married an old school friend of his. They
lived six months in Nashville and six months here.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.
No, no problem.
It’s an amazing history! The experience and the timing of coming in and being at the front
door of all this.
It’s was a fascinating experience. I just happened to be the right person in the right place
at the right time.
Yes. You’d mentioned about the State’s management and this is I guess one of the big
things. It’s very interesting that had the 1982 Master Plan been…
If they had monitored, and done what they were supposed to do, we wouldn’t have had
maybe all of these controversies.
That’s right, that’s correct, yes.
The State does that you know, I mean they’re great… Politicians have a tendency to
build a big project but they don’t provide for the maintenance.
That’s right, the long term. The vision, the short term, get it done is good, but we need
to… I can’t help but think and just from talking with people of your generation, the old
kama‘äina families, Hawaiian, non-Hawaiian, but people who have watched and been a
part of the process. If, and so you hope, and I would hope, that you know by your
continued presence in the House of Representatives, that if we would just think out
beyond the immediate and fulfill, and insure, we wouldn’t be spending all of our time and
energy on these…
That’s right, we’re always fighting battles that didn’t need to be fought.
That’s right, yes.
If it had been done properly in the first place.
Yes. Thank you so much, I really wanted to take the time. I know how busy you are.
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:611