Every year at this time I review my Rearview Mirror columns from the past 12 months and award those men and women who have made outstanding contributions to the islands in their lifetimes. The winners are …

Outstanding Leadership

Paul Breese was the first Honolulu Zoo director from 1947 to 1965 and a frequent source for Rearview Mirror.

Under Breese’s guidance the Honolulu Zoo became the first in the world to propagate Galapagos tortoises. Over time, Breese said, it bred over 70 and exchanged them with zoos around the world. Millions of visitors have seen them.

Tim Hata told me he lived next to Breese in Kailua in the early 1960s. The director brought home animals from the zoo, such as baby gorillas Congo and Cameroon.

“I have home movies of me and one of the gorillas (both of us in diapers) playing in our front yard,” Hata said.

“One of the animals Paul brought home was a baby chimpanzee. One day, my mother was napping in the living room. The chimp came over, opened our front screen door (which wasn’t locked back then) came in our house and grabbed my mother’s leg. This startled my mother and she screamed for my father.”

Paul and Jean DeMercer- Breese wrote an excellent book, “The Honolulu Zoo,” in 2015. Paul Breese died this year at 96.

Glass Ceiling Breaker

Female police officers owe a debt of gratitude to a trailblazing woman at the Honolulu Police Department named Lucile Abreu.

Abreu joined HPD in 1953. The only place a female officer could work then was with in the Juvenile Crime Division. There was only one sergeant, and none of the other four women at the time could be promoted until she left.

Abreu took the sergeant’s test 67 times over 20 years. She was denied a promotion 67 times, even though she often placed first on the test. Men who placed lower were promoted.

Abreu decided to file a lawsuit, and in 1975 the courts found she had been passed over only because of her gender.

Susan Ballard is Hono­lulu’s first female chief of police. She said Abreu’s lawsuit “threw open the doors for all female officers. Now more women could be HPD officers.”

Surfing Cop Award

Buddy Adolphson patrolled the North Shore from 1951 through the 1980s (past his official retirement) and was known to many as the “Surfing Cop.” He was a one-man rescue patrol.

Over four decades he saved over 100 lives, nephew Fred Hemmings says. Among those he saved were hikers, fishermen, swimmers, surfers, hang gliders, boaters and canoers.

HPD gave him a station wagon so he could carry surfboards in 1958. He later upgraded to a jeep that he augmented with over $25,000 of his own money.

“I don’t drink or smoke,” Adolphson said, “so I put my money into lifesaving equipment.”

Better Late Than Never

Musician, music arranger, composer and filmmaker Eddie Kamae was drafted into World War II in 1945 and had to put aside graduating from Farrington High School.

“After the war he returned to Farrington, determined to obtain his diploma. Near the end of the semester, however, he was told that he was one credit short,” Ted Sakai said. “He would have to attend summer school for it.” Kamae walked away instead.

During the 2009-2010 school year, Eddie was helping Farrington’s fledgling Hawaiian Academy. School Principal Catherine Payne thought Eddie’s life work was worth far, far more than one credit.

“She granted Eddie the credit he needed for graduation. She then got permission from the senior class to have Eddie march with them at graduation.”

On a sunny day in May 2010, Eddie Kamae proudly donned the maroon-and-white cap and gown and marched into the amphitheater as a member of the Farrington High School Class of 2010. He was 82.

Entrepreneur of the Year

I wrote about Chiyo Hayakawa in February. Her grandson Ken Fujii said her family worked at Onomea Sugar Co. in Papaikou, north of Hilo, nearly 100 years ago.

“She had an idea to start a business, a general store to sell food and other necessities to the plantation community.” She sold some of the ethnic specialties that Japanese, Filipino and other local residents could not get in the plantation store.

Stocking the Hayakawa General Store with merchandise was not easy. There was no delivery from wholesalers to stores in the countryside in the early days. “So on Saturdays my grandmother and her two young sons took the Hawaii Consolidated Railway passenger train to Hilo.

“They bought rice, shoyu, salt, flour and other commodities for their store,” Fujii said, “and then carried their purchases down to the train station. Upon arriving in Papaikou, they had to transport the load from the train station to their house.

“The general store was a success, as many immigrants in the community wanted to patronize a fellow plantation worker,” Fujii surmises. After a while the family moved to Hilo and opened their own business.

So to Chiyo Hayakawa and all those who left the plantation to run companies, I give this year’s Entrepreneur Award.

Rock ’n’ Roll Historian

Not only is Joe Moore the nation’s longest-serving news anchor at one TV station, he’s also a rock ’n’ roll historian.

On Jan. 20 he launched “Joe Moore’s Good Time Rock & Roll,” Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. on “Kool Gold” 107.9. It sounds like a leap, but Moore pointed out that his first job in broadcasting was as a deejay at the University of Maryland.

Many of the groups Moore plays have ties to the islands, such as the Rascals, the Association, Bette Midler, the Monkees, Elvis and Tommy James & the Shondells.

Moore probably doesn’t think of himself as a historian, but I’d point out that his concluding segment on the 6 p.m. broadcast of KHON-2 news (“Have you ever noticed”) is often some historical tidbit as well.

Restaurateurs Award

This award goes to picture bride Shio Harada and her four children: Marian, Walter and Kenneth Harada and Dorothy Shimamoto. The family founded the Sukiyaki Inn in Wahiawa in 1935.

Marian then opened Dot’s Drive Inn in 1940, and Dot managed it.

Dot’s offered lunches and dinners with fountain and car hop service. It was popular during the war with soldiers, despite blackout conditions.

In 1950 the drive-in added a large nightclub. The showroom was the in place in Central Oahu, could hold 400 and was packed six nights a week.

The family also opened Marian’s at Haleiwa in 1956 and Marian’s Catering in 1965. The family-owned business is in its 84th year.

Courage and Bravery

This award goes to four pilots who fought bravely to defend our freedoms.

>> Robert Alex Anderson

Local boy Alex Anderson joined the RAF during World War I. He was shot down, captured by the Germans, escaped and made his way back to England.

Anderson sold his story to McClure’s magazine, and with the money earned, he got married and moved back to Honolulu.

In 1938 his exploits were turned into the movie “Dawn Patrol,” starring Errol Flynn, David Niven and Basil Rathbone.

He became a businessman, but you probably know him better as the composer of “Mele Kalikimaka,” “Lovely Hula Hands” and 100 other songs.

>> Phil Rasmussen

Phil Rasmussen was using the latrine on Dec. 7, 1941, when Wheeler Field was attacked. He took off in an undamaged plane in his pajamas, shot down at least one Zero and landed safely despite over 500 bullet holes in his plane.

>> Kenneth Taylor and George Welch

Army pilot Lt. Kenneth Taylor and his friend George Welch were better dressed on that fateful morning. They were still wearing formal clothes from a function at the Wheeler Officers’ Club the night before.

They jumped into planes and engaged the enemy. A Japanese plane attacked Taylor’s P-40 from behind, shooting up his canopy and wounding his left arm and leg.

For shooting down at least six Japanese planes that day, Taylor and Welch earned Distinguished Serv­ice Crosses, and the Pentagon called them America’s first two heroes of World War II.

Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books, full of stories of Hawaii people, places and companies. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.