Friday, August 14, 2009

The Helene H. Hale State Gymnasium

Photo: David Corrigan, Big Island Video News. Left to right: Mayor Billy Kenoi, Senator Russell Kokubun, former Rep. Helene Hale, Rep. Faye Hanohano, Principal Dean Cevallos

Former State Rep. Helene Hale is 91 and has been involved with local politics for over 50 years. From the time she served on the Hawaii County Council through her years as a state representative (2000-2006), she fought for a state gymnasium at Pahoa High School. In fact, Principal Dean Cevallos was quoted as saying that Governor Burns promised the Class of 1972 that the school would get a new gym. Thirty seven years later, there was a groundbreaking.
Big Island Video News has a video clip of the groundbreaking here. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald story (via The Advertiser) is here. You can also view many photos of the groundbreaking on Damon Tucker's blog here.
Rep. Hale was able to attend the groundbreaking of the building that will be named in her honor. And Mayor Kenoi promised to hoist her up so that she can shoot the first basket.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many pictures of the event here:

http://damontucker.com/2009/08/12/groundbreaking-begins-on-helene-hale-gymnasium-in-pahoa/

James Gonser said...

Mahalo Damon! I will link to your photos.

Unknown said...

thank you damontucker for providing the link..


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