Other PCC, community news

 PCC’s ’12 Days of Christmas’: From December 10-23, 2015, the Polynesian Cultural Center celebrated the season with it’s “12 Days of a Christmas” — a wonderful series of special activities designed to enhance the holidays for families, that included free holiday canoe rides, a live nativity, photos with Santa, a train ride, lots and lots of lights, free entertainment and more! We hope you will be able to join us for Christmas 2016.

PFHoF announces College Player of the Year: The Polynesian Football Hall of Fame, which has a permanent display near the entrance of the Polynesian Cultural Center, has named Notre Dame senior offensive lineman Ronnie Stanley, a Tongan who started all 10 games this season, as its Polynesian College Football Player of the Year.

The PFHoF added this category last year when they gave this honor to Marcus Mariota, a Samoan from Hawaii. Other college players nominated this year included:

• DeForest Buckner (Samoan, DL, U of Oregon senior, DET: 1953-1959): 61 tackles on the year (42 solo). Born in Waianae, Oahu.
• Su’a Cravens (Samoan, LB, USC junior): 66 tackles (41 solo). Born in Los Angeles, CA.
• Ka’imi Fairbairn (Hawaiian, kicker, UCLA senior): Made 19 of 20 field goals on the year, including a record-setting 60-yarder. Born in Kailua, Hawaii.
• JuJu Smith-Schuster (Samoan, WR, USC sophomore):  63 catches/1,160 yards, 10 TDs on the year. Born in Long Beach, CA.

The Polynesian Football Hall of Fame Class of 2016 who will be inducted during ceremonies in Honolulu and at the Polynesian Cultural Center in January 2016. Please visit polynesianfootballhof.org for more information and tickets to the Enshrinement Ceremony.

Hawaii state high school football champions
celebrate at the Hukilau Marketplace

And speaking of football, hundreds of Kahuku High fans, family and players came to the PCC’s new Hukilau Marketplace on Saturday, November 21, 2015, to celebrate the “pride of the north shore” Hawaii High School State Athletic Association Division One football championship win at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu the previous evening.

Kahuku High, whose students are drawn from Kualoa to Waimea Bay, including Laie where the Polynesian Cultural Center is located, completed a perfect 13-0 season by defeating the St. Louis Crusaders 39-14 in the Aloha Stadium before a crowd of almost 20,000. St. Louis is a member of the private-school Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH).

This is the eighth HHSAA division-one state championship for Kahuku since 2000 — a record made even more impressive by the facts that by virtue of its student-body size, Kahuku should actually play in the smaller-schools division two; and an inordinate number of Kahuku High graduates go on to play Division I college ball and professional football.

Oh yeah, the majority of the Kahuku players are Polynesian; and generations of Kahuku High students, graduates, their parents, their grandparents, and in some cases even their great-grandparents have also worked at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Over here the phrase Red Raiders for Life — often abbreviated RR4L — is not just a slogan, and the PCC was thrilled to have them party at the Hukilau Marketplace.

For example, when too many of the local boys were shut out of playing in the Pop Warner youth football program because they were too big, “uncles” from the community started the Laie Park Big Boys League. This league has since taken off, and regularly feeds well-trained and experienced players into the Kahuku High JV and varsity teams.

In another interesting Polynesian side-note, while the captains of the two teams were involved in the coin toss before the game started, the Kahuku Red Raiders came out on their side of the field and, as they have before every game this season, performed their own customary haka — a New Zealand Maori-influenced action dance composed specifically for Kahuku High. The officials cited the Kahuku boys for unsportsmanlike conduct, which was applied at the opening kickoff. Go Red Raiders!

[For more information on the origins of the Kahuku High haka, go to: https://redraidernation.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/the-story-of-kaipahua-kura-kahukus-very-own-haka/]

New Laie service station opens: Foodland/Aloha Petroleum opened a 24/7 gas station and convenience store in the Laie Shopping Center on November 19, 2015. The new facility offers regular, supreme and diesel fuel.

Story by Mike Foley

Mike Foley, who has worked off-and-on

at the Polynesian Cultural Center since

1968,  has been a full-time freelance

writer and digital media specialist since

2002, and had a long career in marketing

communications and PR before that. He

learned to speak fluent Samoan as a

Mormon missionary before moving to Laie

in 1967 — still does, and he has traveled

extensively over the years throughout

Polynesia and other Pacific islands. Foley

is mostly retired now, but continues to

contribute to various PCC and other media.