The Koa‘e Kea women — Hawaiian Airlines retired hostesses, stewardesses and flight attendants — have chosen Melveen Leed to take them soaring into the stratosphere at their 20th-anniversary dinner party Nov. 12 at the Ala Moana Hotel’s Garden Lanai room starting at 5 p.m. Tickets are $60. Naluhoe, made up of Vicky Hollinger, Kawika McGuire and Pakala Fernandez, will play music. For tickets, make checks out to Koa‘e Kea and mail to Trudy de La Fontaine, 225 Kaiulani St. No. 201, Honolulu, HI 96815. For more info, call Hale Rowland at 258-8028. There will be much hula and singing by the HAL vets. Melveen is not only one of Hawaii’s greatest singers, she is also a good actress and a fine comedian.
I’ve covered the former Miss Molokai since she was beginning to attract serious attention in the early 1960s at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. She became such a favorite of mine that I asked her to sing at my wedding in 1974 after my Roosevelt High 1949 classmate Emma Veary, a fabulous singer, who volunteered to sing for the wedding at Kawaiaha‘o Church, had to drop out. Emma had met my frau-to-be when she was in Germany on a promotional tour for the movie “Hawaii.” I served in the Army two years in Germany and worked for the Stars and Stripes newspaper for troops and their families as a civilian there for eight more years. Small world that Emma would meet my former girlfriend there after I had left for home.
Without hesitation, Melveen said she would be the wedding singer when I asked. I requested three songs: “Lei Aloha Lei Makamae,” “Kanaka Waiwai” and “Pua Carnation.”
Shortly before the Rev. Abraham Akaka was to conduct the ceremony, Melveen came bouncing into the room where I, best man Frank “Steiny” Steinmiller, who loved to joke, and groomsmen Tim Smythe and the late Hank McKeague were waiting. Steiny shook me up by saying his pants had split down the rear. I told him don’t joke, ’cause I’m all shook up already. Steiny said he was not joking. He wasn’t. A church employee came in, took the pants and sewed them up. Then dear Melveen said she had just visited with my nervous fiancee and her equally nervous bridesmaids and told them, “Ben wanted three songs: ‘Lei Aloha Lei Makamae,’ ‘Kanaka Waiwai’ and ‘Please Release Me Let Me Go.’ The girls went crazy” …
This week’s “Saturday Night Live” entertainer is Hawaii’s Bruno Mars, on KHNL at 10:30 p.m. Host is Emily Blunt, who stands out in her new movie “The Girl on the Train.” If you go to the highly publicized “Train,” pay close attention to it as there are numerous flashbacks that can cause confusion …
Fashion designer Nake‘u Awai presents “Shall We Dance,” his island song-and-dance luncheon show at Dole in Iwilei on Dec. 4. Entertainment will be by Patricia Lei Murray, Aaron Sala, Starr Kalahiki, Bryan Tolentino, Snowbird Bento and her Olapa Kane, Pohai Souza and her Kaika Mahine, Joan S. Lindsey and her Keiki Kane, and Kekoa Kaluhiwa. Marketplace is from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., lunch is from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and the show begins at 12:30 p.m. Tickets are $65. Call 841-1221 for reservations …
Aloha Bill: My longtime colleague Bill Kwon, who died at 81 on Oct. 6, was a fighter. After suffering a crippling injury as a child, he kept fighting hard to try to be just as good, if not better, mentally and physically than others around him. His injuries were too severe for him to compete in organized sports, but he was able to write about sports with the best of them in Hawaii and elsewhere, rising to become sports editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. And when it came to golf, because his injuries kept his body from achieving full size, he had special clubs made to allow him to compete with friends and colleagues and take money from guys like me on the course. I was just a hacker, and beating me in golf was no great feat, but he sure let me know he enjoyed it …
Ben Wood, who sold newspapers on Honolulu streets in World War II, writes of people, places and things. Email him at bwood@staradvertiser.com.
