Hawaii, in the great scheme of things, is a tiny bit of islands in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. So, I am often surprised to hear that people that live here have connections to such luminaries as Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Taylor Swift’s father, Scott, went to the University of Hawaii in 1970 and was on our football team. The freshman linebacker and center was 6 feet, 1 inch tall and 190 pounds.
Sportscaster Al Michaels was in his third year in Hawaii, announcing Hawaiian Islander AAA baseball games in 1970. He also had a part-time gig at KITV.
“I wish I could tell you I remembered Taylor’s father,” Michaels said, “but I’d be lying through my teeth.”
Scott Swift did not play much. The team, under coach David Holmes’ leadership, had a great season, 9-2. Swift transferred to the University of Delaware in his sophomore year, and graduated from there in 1974.
Reading, Pa.
I wrote about that in my Insider email newsletter last week, and one of my readers told me that he and Scott Swift were roommates!
Honolulu resident Carlson Mun said, “In 1977 I was working at radio KHLO in Hilo as the program director. The guy who had hired me sold KHLO and moved to Reading, Pa., to run a modern country station, WHUM.
“After a while I decided I was not happy with the new regime, so I called my old boss who had moved to Reading, Pa. He offered me an announcer spot at WHUM, and off I went.”
Reading is pronounced like the color, red. It’s in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania and has a population of about 95,000.
“To get to Reading,” Mun continued, “I took a flight to New York, grabbed a helicopter shuttle to another New York airport and boarded a twin-engine Otter for the commuter flight to Reading.
“Once the plane landed at Reading Municipal airport, the door to the plane opened, and everyone just sat there until finally the pilot shouted, ‘Anyone getting off at Reading?’ It was just me.
“I started doing the evening shift at WHUM. One of the salesmen there was Scott Swift. I guess Scott and I hit it off because we had both been at UH Manoa.” Mun had just graduated from UH in 1976.
Roommates
“About a month or two after getting to Reading, Scott suggested we share the rent at the apartment he had. We were roommates for about two years.
“I don’t recall him mentioning anything specific about Hawaii, but that his dad was a World War II veteran and may have been at Pearl Harbor at the start of the war.
“He was considerate enough to invite a lonely guy fresh from Hawaii on a weekend adventure to Cape May on the Jersey Shore.
“On another occasion, Scott and I went to visit his parents’ home in Williamsport, Pa., where they have the Little League Baseball World Series.
“My parents came to visit, and Scott took us all on a tour of Philadelphia and Valley Forge.
“Scott was a really nice guy, and I guess he was a good radio salesman. Near the end of our rooming together, he had enough money to move from the apartment to buying a house.
“He was always checking to see how his stocks were doing. After he left radio sales, he became a stockbroker. I recall he had his own investment group within Merrill Lynch.
“At one time he mentioned that one of his clients was James MacArthur from ‘Hawaii Five-0.’ It may have been because of Scott’s Hawaii and UH Manoa connections,” Mun concluded.
Scott Swift married Andrea Finlay and had a daughter, Taylor, in 1989 and a son, Austin, in 1992. Taylor was named for musician James Taylor. They lived in West Reading, Pa. In 2003 they moved outside of Nashville, Tenn., to support Taylor’s musical career.
The last time Mun had any contact with Scott Swift was around 2014.
James MacArthur
In 2022 I wrote about Philip Altfeld, who was friends with James MacArthur, “Danno” on the first 11 seasons of “Hawaii Five-0.”
“MacArthur had a business relationship with Taylor Swift’s dad, Scott, who managed a portion of Jim’s assets,” Altfeld said. “They became fast friends, so naturally I was drawn into that relationship.”
Altfeld believes a sound engineer on “Hawaii Five-0,” Charlie Wilborn, introduced Scott Swift to James MacArthur.
“What the world doesn’t know is that Taylor Swift attended Jim’s funeral in Nyack, N.Y., in 2010. I was asked to deliver Jim’s eulogy.” Taylor was 20 at the time.
“Jim’s mother and father, Helen Hayes and Charles MacArthur, are buried in the family plot. Taylor and Scott Swift both attended the memorial service,” Altfeld said. “I so appreciated that she took time out from her crushing schedule to honor ‘Uncle’ Jim’s memory.”
Taylor Swift vacationed on Maui in 2015 with Este, Danielle and Alana Haim. I’m sure she has other Hawaii connections. If you know of any, let me know.
Beyonce
Did you notice that two new associate justices of the Hawaii Supreme Court were sworn in on Jan. 12? One of them, Lisa M. Ginoza, said she is a fourth-generation American. Her Okinawan great-grandparents came to Maui to work on sugar plantations.
Ginoza said the Japanese term for fourth generation is “yonsei.” But apparently the autocorrect program at YouTube, where her swearing-in ceremony was posted, misunderstood “Yonsei” and called her “Beyonce.”
Hilo Coca-Cola plant
I mentioned William “Doc” Hill in the Feb. 9 column. Hill was a well-known Big Island state senator and businessman. He had a talking mynah bird named Little Doc.
Wally Camp wondered whether Hill owned a Hilo eatery. Willson Moore said he posed the question to Richard Henderson of Hilo. Henderson was Moore’s Punahou 1946 classmate, and had been a business associate of Hill’s. Later, he succeeded him in the state Senate. This is what Richard had to say:
“Doc Hill never owned a restaurant in Hilo, but during World War II he built a Coca-Cola plant in Hilo. Because of the martial law, in order to get the materials to build the plant, he needed to get permits from the War Department (now called the Department of Defense).
“It just so happened that Ouida, his wife’s sister, was the private secretary to the secretary of war, so Doc flew to Washington and met with his sister-in-law, who took the necessary permits to the secretary of war for his signature. Doc flew back to Hilo and built the bottling plant.
“He did set up a sandwich shop, and every day sent a truckload of sandwiches and Cokes to the Marines at Kamuela,” Henderson said. “No restaurant, but a very profitable sandwich shop.”
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
