An award-winning educator known as "Mr. Pearl City" will be honored Wednesday for his volunteerism and community leadership with the renaming of a site as the Shigeo Ushiro Neighborhood Park.
The late Shigeo "Shige" Ushiro is being honored for "his lifetime of compassionate and committed service to his Manana neighborhood and the greater Pearl City community," according to the Honolulu City Council resolution changing the name of Manana Neighborhood Park.
"He was a tireless worker," said friend Kenji "Doc" Uejo, a retired dentist. "He was a leader. He got everybody involved. … He got me and my wife to help at the fair" to cut vegetables and sell Huli-Huli chicken tickets for fundraising.
Named Hawaii’s secondary school principal of the year in 1986 while at Highlands Intermediate School,Ushiro served as longtime board member of the Pearl City Community Association and as the Manana Community Association’s first president. He pushed for a community pool at the Manana park, which is now part of the 4-acre site that also boasts basketball and volleyball courts, a skate park, softball fields and multipurpose fields.
Its five-lane pool was built in the early 1970s and is well used by the community, with programs for seniors and children including Manana Elementary School students.
The park will be rededicated at 10 a.m. with plaque honoring Ushiro at 1550 Kuahaka St., in front of the pool.
Councilman Breene Harimoto proposed the resolution, which was passed unanimously in August.
He said Ushiro was known as "Mr. Pearl City" because of his involvement in a variety of community activities such as scholarship fundraisers for Pearl City High School students, including the Goodwill/Scholarship Golf Tournament, which he spearheaded. He also co-founded the Pearl City Foundation, which saved the pool at the Momilani Community Center.
Ushiro was "a master at selling chicken tickets," Harimoto said. "When I was just getting involved (with the Pearl City Community Association), I tagged along."
"I swear I sold maybe five tickets," he said. "Shige probably sold a few hundred tickets. He would know everyone by name, and even if he didn’t, he’d start up a conversation and sell them tickets, too.
"He was one of my role models for serving the communities," he said.
Harimoto’s final formal event as a councilman is a tribute to his mentor.
"If there’s anybody who deserves to have a park named after him, it’s Shige," Harimoto said.
Born in Wailuku, Ushiro died June 18, 2010, at age 78.
In 1988, former Gov. Ben Cayetano awarded Ushiro the Kilohana Award for being one of the year’s outstanding volunteers in the state.
Uejo will speak at the event and plans to thank Ushiro’s wife, Elaine, and their four children for "sharing this wonderful man, who really made a mark in making our community what it is."
