Top-rated Honolulu radio personalities Michael W. Perry and Larry Price will be honored by the Honolulu Police Community Foundation at its annual gala beginning at 5:30 p.m. May 18 at the Sheraton Waikiki Ballrooms.
Tickets for the fundraising gala are $200 each, and tables for 10 start at $2,500. Direct any inquiries to 396-1733 or 942-3873.
The duo is being feted as hosts of Hawaii’s longest-running, No. 1 morning radio show, for their long service to the community as a broadcast team and as individuals, and for their "posse," or listeners who help other listeners in various situations.
The broadcasters have "served this community in so many ways, it’s impossible to quantify their value to our islands," said Lee Donohue, foundation president and former Honolulu police chief. "We couldn’t be prouder to have them as our 2012 honorees."
Perry and Price predecessor "J. Akuhead Pupule" had for decades put callers on the air reporting lost-and-found pets and found birds in need of TLC, as well as calls for song requests or dedications and community events. The posse was an extension of the foundation "Aku" had laid.
"Aku was the first guy to put phones on the air," Perry said. "Probably one of the first in radio, but he was the first one in Hawaii" to air phone calls in the 1950s.
Perry and Price were teamed up upon Aku’s death in 1983. They maintained Aku’s dominant morning audience, and within a few years people started getting cellular phones.
GTE Mobilnet, Honolulu Cellular and other companies were established, and soon Honolulu had "the No. 1 (mobile phone) penetration in the nation," Perry said.
"It just caught on," he said. People realized they could call in to report traffic conditions from their cars and not have to "wait for the helicopter to fly over with Capt. Irwin" and his traffic reports, he said.
"So the posse started with traffic reports," then one day, around 1987, a man called to report that his car had been stolen from a 7-Eleven parking lot. He had just run in to buy a pack of cigarettes, and had left the engine running.
"We got solid phone calls," Perry said. Gil Doles, a caller who spotted the stolen car, followed that car, said producer Sweetie Pacarro. His wife slouched down in the passenger seat to share updates on the air, because she didn’t want to be seen by the suspect.
"We were concerned in the beginning because some of them were too aggressive, we were afraid somebody was going to get beat up or shot," said Price. The team would emphasize that listeners should not get directly involved, but act simply as the eyes and ears of the Honolulu Police Department.
P&P don’t have any call-to-capture statistics, though many perps have been nabbed. Archival recordings of posse adventures also have been lost over time, but as Perry put it, "we were Hawaii’s first social network." It was "Jurassic-era social networking," he laughed, prior to the Internet era.
Long past the Jurassic era of social networking, lost-and-found pets have a place not just on the air, but on the station’s website as well.
The posse was self-named, and the slogan, "Nevah fe-ah, da posse is he-ah," also was created by listeners, the duo says.
At the gala they are sure to share the tale of the morning they saw the KSSK van being stolen as they got to work. Emblazoned with the station logo and "4-foot-tall" images of Perry and Price, with the radio blaring the station, it didn’t stay stolen long. The van was recovered but the thief got away.
In addition to stolen cars, Jet Skis and pets, sometimes callers needed help finding loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease who had wandered away from home.
"That’s big-time stuff," Price said. "When they call you can hear … the emotion" in their voices.
One such case was solved by two workers in Waikiki who wanted their call handled off the air because they were taking an unauthorized break from work. Ironically, they told the producer that they had just been mocking the posse because "that stuff never works" when they spotted the Alzheimer’s patient who had just been reported missing that morning.
"A happy reunion followed," Perry said.
"We have an active audience. They are incredible," said Perry on the left. "Listeners really want to help," said Price on the right.
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
On the Net:
» www.honolulupolicecommunityfoundation.org
» www.ksskradio.com/main.htm
