Don Ho was a father figure to former isle newscaster

When Barack Obama was a student at Punahou, Don Ho was performing in Waikiki. One of Ho’s long-running jokes was that there should be a Hawaiian president. It was time. He volunteered himself for the job. "President Ho," he suggested. "I’d move the White House to Hawaii and call it the Ho House."

One of his close friends was former KGMB newscaster Linda Coble. She told me that when she moved to Hawaii in 1969, she often went to the Don Ho show at Duke’s. "This was when Kalakaua ran two ways," she mused.

"I’d sit in the Harem Section," she recalled. "The Harem Section was the first row and was reserved for hot coeds — locals and those fresh off the plane like me." Coble estimates she saw hundreds of his shows.

"Bouncers in white shirts with kukui nut lei would guard us. They’d keep an eye on the door to the ladies’ room, too. They took good care of us.

"I was there almost every night for my first few months here. Three to four hundred attended each of his shows. Unlike most performers, more than half of Don’s shows were banter with the audience. It was probably why he was so successful.

"He would look over his keyboard and make eye contact with people. He engaged the audience and invited them to participate.

"Don was magical with everybody," Coble says, "The Harem Section, the honeymooners, people celebrating their anniversaries. He’d have them get up and either sing a song, tell a joke or buy the house a round. They were given a spotlight.

"The grandmas would be invited to the stage to line-dance and sing to ‘New York New York.’ Everybody had a moment."

Don said "my formula for success has always been to surround yourself with good people — and learn from them."

Coble’s favorite song of Don’s was "I’ll Remember You." "When he sang it, I felt it. It was like he was looking right at me."

Linda and Don were so close through the years that after boyfriend Kirk Matthews moved to Hawaii in 1983 and wanted to marry Linda, he had to sit on Don’s lap and ask permission.

"I came back from two years in Portland with a haole boy," Coble says. "I was told I shouldn’t get married to him until Don checked him out."

Don looked him over and must have liked him, but he had a warning: "If you evah hurt dis girl, I’m gonna kill you," he told Kirk.

Haumea Ho recalls that "Don especially loved to tell the story of Kirk. Don would say Linda was like a daughter to him. He was very protective. That’s why he said what he said to Kirk."

Coble remembers Don joking about his first bus ride on the mainland when he joined the Air Force in the 1950s. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus in the south back then, but, while he looked different, they didn’t know what to make of him.

"They’d look at me and look at me and nevah knew what to do with me. I’d end up sitting in da middle of the bus," Don would joke.

"Don was a powerful influence in my life," Coble says. "He took real pride in everything he did. He loved his kids so deeply. His kids, his ohana — he knew what we did. He kept his ears open, and people told him stuff all the time. Sometimes he knew what I was doing before I did!"

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Bob Sigall is Hawaii’s business historian. He helps local companies tell their stories. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.