Martin & MacArthur adds koa iPhone accessories line

Martin & MacArthur has jumped into the iPhone case craze and will debut its "iKoa" koa wood cases for the iPhone 4 and 4S on Friday at all 10 stores around the state as well as online.

Cool iPhone cases are nothing new, and many that are made or enhanced in Hawaii are available at craft fairs, the Made in Hawaii Festival and so on. Koa iPhone cases also are not new, as evidenced by a simple Google search.

Koa wood iPhone skins, cases and iPad cases with koa wood inlays are available from $14.99 on up — often plus shipping charges — on sites such as SkinIt.com, Etsy.com and Zazzle.com, to name a few.

The $179 iPhone cases from Martin & MacArthur are made in two pieces that slip onto the phone, but also include a secret compartment for stashing a card, such as a driver’s license or credit card. The company will soon debut koa cases for the iPad and selected Android phones.

The company recently launched koa watches, sunglasses, eternity rings and other jewelry in the past three years, and plans to add new personal accessories to its long-known lines of koa jewelry boxes and furniture.

Cambodian ‘Plate’

Pamela Young’s latest "Mixed Plate" show focuses on an orphanage in Phnom Phen, Cambodia. The children are "fostered by many Hawaii people," she said.

"Children of the Future Light" airs at 7 p.m. today on KITV.

Bye-bye Brock

News junkie, veteran broadcaster and broadcast historian Brock Whaley will soon leave Hawaii for a new phase of his career, which he is permitted to describe only in the most general of terms.

"I am going to work as a radio consultant for the military in Afghanistan," he said. "My country has been good to me. I am lucky to have been recruited for a position that allows me to give something back."

Most recently he has worked at Clear Channel Hawaii as a fill-in talk-show host, news announcer and producer on KHVH-AM 830 and as an on-air personality on KSSK-FM 92.3/AM 590. Today is his last day.

He first came to Hawaii in 1983 where he starred with Charly Espina in the "B-Rock and Charly" morning show on the old KPOI-FM 97.5. Whaley returned to Atlanta from 2000 to 2007 where he worked at Cox Radio Inc. headquarters, and then came back to the islands.

Now that he’s off again, the thing he’ll miss most, he said, are "my fellow cast members and crew from the satirical Gridiron show. Their laughter will always be with me." Whaley has served as a writer for the previously annual news parody show, even while in Atlanta, where he kept up with local news online.

Garvey + Gramann

Marketers-turned-Lanikai Bath and Body retailers Gloria Garvey and Brook Gramann will be revisiting their usual Christmas-season haunt, fronting First Hawaiian Bank at the corner of Bishop and King Streets on behalf of the Salvation Army. It is a 20-year tradition for the business partners who for the last 10 years also have handed out to kettle-filling donors macadamia nut chocolates donated to them for the effort by Hawaiian Host Inc.

The duo will surely rake in the bucks, as they’ll be bell-ringing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, during the busy central business district lunch hour.

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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.