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Bernice Char Loui, known for her family’s numerous donations to the University of Hawaii totaling nearly $5 million, died Jan. 18 at Straub Clinic & Hospital. She was 104.
Born and raised in Honolulu, she married Leong Hop Loui, a sports reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, in 1931. They were smitten with travel and borrowed on their insurance policy to fund their expeditions.
The couple’s sightseeing paid off in 1946 when they partnered with former Pan American Airlines Manager Robert MacGregor to establish International Travel Service, Hawaii’s first nationally accredited tour agency. The agency grew and spawned three subsidiaries: Trade Wind Tours, Trade Wind Transportation and Hawaiian Cruises.
In the early 1980s the two donated money to establish the China Fund at the UH-Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. Over the past 30 years, the fund has helped to foster research partnerships between China and the university and pay in part or full for faculty and student visits and exchanges to and from the country.
Following her husband’s death in the late 1980s, Loui made donations to the UH-Manoa School of Travel Industry Management to create a cutting-edge computer and information technology center that was named the Leong Hop and Bernice C. Loui Computer Laboratory.
She sold their travel business and retired.
In 2005 she endowed the Bernice Char Loui Clinical Skills Room at UH-Manoa and became the first person to make a private donation to the new John A. Burns School of Medicine. Her last gift will come from her estate and go toward supporting Kapiolani Community College’s School of Culinary Arts.
Loui’s world travel included attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London in 1953, jetting off to Taiwan in 1956 as a guest of President Chiang Kai Shek to open the country’s travel market, and leading a 1972 trip to China shortly after President Nixon’s groundbreaking visit.
She is survived by son Gordon, sister Lillie, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She was predeceased in death by her husband and son Norman.
Visitation will be from 10 to 11 a.m. Friday at Diamond Head Mortuary Chapel. Services will begin at 11 a.m., and a graveside service will follow at 12:45 p.m. at Diamond Head Memorial Park. Casual attire. In lieu of flowers, donations are suggested to Palolo Chinese Home.
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