Da Kine

Kamae to be feted

Ukulele master, filmmaker and historian Eddie Kamae and wife Myrna will be among those honored at the Waikiki Community Center gala fundraising dinner Friday in Waikiki. The event will include silent and live auctions.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority, Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Hawaiian Legacy Foundation also will be honored for their support of the music and visitor industry and the center. The Waikiki Community Center offers services ranging from preschool, continuing education and emergency food, and partners with the Waikiki Health Center and other programs to promote health and environmental programs.

Festivities begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Sheraton Waikiki, 2255 Kalakaua Ave. Cost is $250 per person or $2,000 to $10,000 for a table of 10. Call Denice Keli‘ikoa at 923-1802, ext. 108, for information and reservations.

WWII film to screen

Some of the earliest casualties of the Pacific War were young Hawaiians killed, not at Pearl Harbor, but on tiny specks of atoll sprinkled across the Pacific equator. In the military race to claim land for airfields in the 1930s, the Navy convinced the territory of Hawaii to seize Howland, Baker and Jarvis islets and place volunteer students from Kamehameha and other schools there as stakeholders.

Far from civilization and required only to monitor weather and tide conditions, the students were left to catch lobsters from the shark-filled lagoons and shore breaks, read tattered novels and, on Howland Island, prepare a runway for Amelia Earhart, who never arrived. When war broke out, the Japanese imperial forces bombed and shelled the islets, killing a number of the students. A month later, U.S. Navy destroyers sprinted to the scene and evacuated the boys.

"Under a Jarvis Moon" is an hourlong documentary produced by Bishop Museum in conjunction with an exhibit on the subject some years ago. It will be aired on KHET PBS-Hawaii at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, and there will be a free public screening at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Hawaii Theatre. PBS Hawaii President Leslie Wilcox will initiate a discussion prior to the showing, and three of the surviving colonists — Manny Sproat, George Kahanu Sr. and Paul Phillips — are expected to attend.

For tickets, contact the Hawaii Theatre box office at 528-0506.

Aha Hipuu event set

The Royal Benevolent Societies, jointly known as Aha Hipuu, will sponsor the sixth annual Kalani Alii Awards Banquet on Saturday.

The luncheon, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Manoa Grand Ballroom, Japanese Cultural Center in Moiliili, honors five selected kupuna whose spirits have been influential to the perpetuation of Hawaii’s cultural arts, education and history. Agnes Kalaniho‘okaha Cope, best known as "Aunty Aggie," will be honored, along with Haili ‘Ohana, S. Haunani Apoliona, Sarah Patricia Ilialoha Keahi and William Kaihe‘ekai Maioho.

Cost is $50 per person or $500 for a table of 10. Sponsorship tables are also available for $1,000, $2,000 and $5,000. Visit www.ahahipuu.org or contact Donna Lei Smythe at 595-3983 for more information.