A Newsy Sampling Of Dis And Dots
The one person who is most looking forward to this week’s NFL Draft being over? Has to be Marcus Mariota. He’s spent the past two months shuttling back and forth across the country, working out for and being interviewed by endless teams, and being the subject of countless rumors about which team will draft him. At least he’ll know on Thursday where he’ll be playing next season and he can start creating his new normal …
I’m told by a person who was there that after the folks at Excel Sports Management in New York City (they also handle Peyton and Eli Manning, Danica Patrick and Taylor Swift) finished their pitch about all the endorsement deals they could get for him, they asked Marcus if he had any questions. He had just one: “What experience do you have in helping your clients set up charitable foundations?” Jaws dropped around the table. “That’s never happened before!” one is said to have commented. That’s just Marcus being Marcus …
Having recently moved to a residence with a view of Kaneohe Bay, I was curious about its geology, hydrology and critters. A bit of Googling led to a paper by Paul L. Jokiel, Ph.D., of Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (no date given for publication, but I’m guessing 1990ish). It is fascinating though highly technical, and includes this tidbit about what we now call Coconut Island, aka Gilligan’s Island (because it was seen in the opening of the iconic TV show):
“Originally, Moku o Loe was owned by Hawaiian royalty. Later it came under the ownership of Bishop Estate. It was purchased in 1933 by Chris Holmes, a Fleishman yeast heir. It was he who enlarged the island, built the ponds, harbors, and seawall surrounding the island. He also planted large numbers of coconut palms, which gave rise to the popular name ‘Coconut Island.’
“After Chris Holmes passed away in 1944, Coconut Island was used for an Army Rest & Recreation center until it was bought by five investors. Eventually Edwin Pauley became principal owner. He gave the University of Hawaii land and a large research grant to establish Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology … HIMB has become known worldwide as a leading marine biological research institute.” …
BTW, famed Pauley Pavilion at UCLA is named for Edwin Pauley …
Quite an honor for Uncle Tom Moffatt, and it all started when Jimmy Buffett first met Tom in the 1980s and called him “Colonel,” after Elvis Presley’s legendary manager Colonel Tom Parker. Well, now it’s official. The governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Steven Beshear, signed a proclamation declaring Tom to be a commissioned “Kentucky Colonel.” Salute the next time you see him …
BTW, Tom’s Saturday morning radio show on KKOL is the top-rated Saturday a.m. show in eight different demographics. The greatest radio DJ in Hawaii history? …
A big mahalo — and congratulations! — to the staff of the Moanalua High student newspaper, for which I served as a volunteer adviser this year.
Having been introduced to journalism through my high school paper, there was a sense of coming full circle. And the students were great to work with. (Thanks also to Principal Robin Martin for allowing me the opportunity share some of my experience with students at one of Hawaii’s top schools, public or private.) It is very heartening to see young people care about doing good journalism, and each issue has gotten better and better throughout the school year. In fact, at last week’s statewide high school journalism awards luncheon, Moanalua won an award in the “best single issue” category. A ton of credit goes to their excellent instructor Mahina Komeiji, but the “Writing Menehune” (not to mention photographing and designing) were very engaged in the entire process of putting out a paper. And I’m pleased to say that at least eight of the seniors on the staff will be studying communications-journalism in college next year. The future of journalism is in good hands, as all the kids at the awards luncheon also showed.
dchapman@midweek.com
