Harriet Gee: Star-Bulletin reporter’s career spanned 43 years

From pressing government leaders on community issues to covering high-profile crime trials, Honolulu Star-Bulletin veteran reporter Harriet Mun Gee was a consummate professional.

“She was a talented and versatile reporter,” said friend and former colleague Helen Altonn.

Gee, whose journalism career spanned 43 years, died Tuesday. She was 89.

As a reporter, Gee was diligent, conscientious and ethical, friends and family members say.

They described her as knowledgeable and firm when seeking answers from state officials.

Born in Honolulu, Gee, a McKinley High School alumna, graduated in 1949 from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Soon after, she was hired by the Star-Bulletin.

Working for the newspaper was a goal fulfilled for Gee, who at age 10 made a decision to work at the paper.

Gee initially wrote for the society section and then the religion pages before being assigned to the court beat in 1961.

She would spend the next 18 years reporting on criminal cases that often involved organized crime and murder.

Mary Adamski, a retired police and religion reporter for the Star-Bulletin, said, Gee “was one of the best court reporters they ever had.”

Judges trusted her, Adamski said. Gee was dignified and always miles ahead of her counterparts, she said. “She was a smart cookie.”

Gee also was one of the first Asian-American women to work as a news reporter.

Gerald Kato, associate journalism professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a retired Honolulu Advertiser writer, briefly covered courts at the same time as Gee. “It’s a tribute to her and her professionalism that she was a top-notch reporter and went on to become a Kokua Line columnist,” he said.

Gee succeeded Joanne Imig as the Kokua Line columnist in 1979, bringing the same hard-nosed reporting style to the reader-help column as she did to court reporting.

She often could be overheard in the newsroom grilling government officials and bureaucrats to get answers to questions submitted by readers.

Gee wrote the Kokua Line column until she retired in May 1992.

Even in retirement, she closely followed and had strong opinions on local and world issues.

She met her husband, the late Bill Gee, at the Star-Bulletin where he was a longtime sports writer and associate sports editor. The couple had three daughters. One daughter, Pat Gee, followed in her parents’ footsteps as a Star-Bulletin reporter. She currently covers the religion beat for the Star-Advertiser.

Another daughter, Linda Gee Beil, described her mother as sentimental and the “most generous-hearted mother, popo (grandmother), sister, auntie and friend to anyone she took under her wing.

“She overlooked people’s faults, and her love for someone lasted over time, always remembering the good things about a person, especially what their favorite foods were,” her daughter said in an emailed statement. “She showed her love the old-fashioned Chinese mother way, by feeding you — giving you a ton of food to take home, or planning a lunch or dinner for you.”

Family and friends recall some of her special dishes: spicy beef, potato-macaroni salad and turkey jook.

Gee remained close to a group of former colleagues from the Star-Bulletin. For more than 20 years, they met once a month for dim sum, reminiscing about the good old days.

Gee also enjoyed traveling to Las Vegas with her family and was an avid sports fan who loved baseball.

Altonn, former political and health and science reporter for the Star-Bulletin, said, “She was just a classy lady.”

Gee also is survived by son-in-law Isaac Lee and granddaughter Jayna Michelle Mun Gee.

A private memorial service will be held. The family requests that any donations go to Palama Settlement, 801 N. Vineyard Blvd., Honolulu HI 96813, in memory of Harriet Gee.