Yemun Chung — event promoter, entertainment visionary, decorated combat veteran — died Sept. 11 in Las Vegas after complaining of chest pains. He was 78.

Born June 17, 1945, in San Francisco, Chung had extensive experience in Bay Area radio and television, and earned a Bronze Star during the Vietnam War. He came to Hawaii as the manager of a Bay Area band in 1974. When the band broke up, Chung opened an artist management company and made Hawaii his home.

Chung made Hawaii entertainment history in 1977 when he told New Experience, a local Top 40 band from Waialua, that he could develop them into a show band. New Experience became the Fabulous Krush, and Chung guided them to headliner status at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Garden Bar and then to a recording contract.

In 1981, the group’s debut album, “Fabulous Krush,” won three Na Hoku Hanohano Awards — album of the year, contemporary album of the year and most promising artists. Then, when the Aliis, one of Waikiki’s biggest show groups, decided to leave the Outrigger Main Showroom, the Krush became the new headliners, alternating with the Society Of Seven.

Macky Galbiso and Wade Kuroiwa, founding members of New Experience and the Fabulous Krush, met Chung when they were playing at Waikiki Beef &Grog on Kalakaua Avenue.

“He said he had this idea, and we all looked at each other like, ‘yeah, right,’ because some of these managers are really sketchy, these people offering you this kind of stuff, but it happened,” Galbiso said. “We found out how much work it takes to put something together. I never realized the work you have to put into it, but then you get to see the results. The crowd at the Garden Bar going from five people to 10, to 20, to a massive amount of people.”

Kuroiwa remembered Chung as a man who “always had an energy that was hard to explain. He had a vision of what we could become, and he knew how to get there. He had no doubts in his mind. He was kind of a perfectionist. No matter how good we thought we were, he always had notes to make it a little better. It was kind of frustrating but we all knew he was right.”

Krush member Freddy Von Paraz said Chung played an important part in his growth from “musician” to “entertainer.”

“When I first started with the Krush at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, I was like one of the youngest ones in it and I was basically just a drummer. Yemun said he was going to make me an entertainer, not just a drummer in the back,” he said.

After every set, the group would have a meeting with Chung to go over “everything, every little detail … in a positive way, not in a bad way,” Von Paraz said. “The criticism that he was giving us (was) for a better show and everything. To me, he was our success. Without him we wouldn’t have had success.”

Veteran Waikiki guitarist Jimmy Funai recalled Chung’s resourcefulness. The Krush was on tour when Chung learned that more guitar tracks were needed to complete their first album. To keep the project on schedule, he called Funai.

“We went in the studio with Brian Robertshaw; he was the man behind the whole thing musically,” Funai said. “Yemun asked me to teach (band members) Bucci (Canencia) and Hal Bradbury how to play the solos I’d recorded when they got back, and I did. Yemun was a nice guy.”

Chung brought the same meticulous attention to detail as the manager of Honolulu, an ambitious young show band in the 1990s after the group parted ways with its previous manager. Glenn Miyashiro, a founding member of the group, said Chung was frank but positive in critiquing their performances.

“He gave us some really good advice. Some took it bad but I really took it to heart,” Miyashiro said. “He was very motivated and got us looking at the different aspects of what we wanted to do.”

Sonya Mendez, a Waikiki showroom entertainer in the 1970s and lead vocalist of Sonya &Revolucion in the 1980s, said Chung “was really about promotion. And he was about presentation, and he just really put a lot into the job. He really believed in his job and worked hard and really wanted to make the entertainers big. That’s what I really admired about him.”

Hawaii event producer Alan Arato got to know Chung when they were working for concert promoter Tom Moffatt. Arato fondly described Chung as “the poster guy.”

“He was the guy who would literally put 11-by-17 (inch) posters on telephone poles all over Oahu. It was his exercise. One day we did a whole run — Kaimuki starting at like 10 in the morning, and when I went home about 6 or 7 that night, going home to Kaneohe, I couldn’t stop. Being trained by Yemun and Moffatt is why I think I do well today.”

Chung and his wife, Gloria, moved to Las Vegas in 2010.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Yvette Brink, Beau Brink and Darrell Kadooka; and his sister, Loling Johnson.

A private funeral will be held. Plans for a public celebration of life are pending.