In other PCC and related news We share several additional noteworthy items with you:

•     New president to lead BYU-Hawaii: 

John S. Tanner, an English professor and former academic vice president of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, has been named as the tenth president of BYU-Hawaii, effective July 27, 2015. He succeeds President Steven L. Wheelwright, who has served in that position for the past eight years.

Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and chairman of the Church Educational System’s Board of Trustees executive committee, made the announcement at the end of a special devotional in the BYUH Cannon Activities Center on May 12.

Latter-day Saint subscribers and others may be interested to know that in addition to his academic duties, Tanner is currently serving in the Church as first counselor in the Sunday School general presidency. He is also a former missionary and mission president in Brazil. His wife, Susan Winder Tanner, is a former general president of the Church’s Young Women auxiliary organization.

During their remarks in the devotional meeting, President Tanner pointed out that he and his wife have island connections in their respective families: His grandfather, William G. Sears, served three times as a missionary in Samoa and helped translate the Book of Mormon into Samoan; and her great-great-grandfather, George Q. Cannon, was one of the original Mormon missionaries in Hawaii in 1850 and helped translate the Book of Mormon into Hawaiian.

Church leaders also more recently announced that President Wheelwright and his wife, Margaret, have been called as president and matron of the Boston Temple. They will begin their new service there in November 2015.

BYU-Hawaii was founded in 1955 as the Church College of Hawaii. Eight years later the Polynesian Cultural Center opened, partially to provide employment for the students to help them with their educational expenses

The PCC works closely with the university leadership and currently employs approximately 700 BYUH students.

•     New Laie Courtyard by Marriott hotel completes hiring: 

The recently appointed executive team of the new Laie Courtyard by Marriott hotel, which we listed in the last issue of the PCC e-newsletter [ link, if possible ], has announced they have filled 45 open positions.

The team recently held a job fair, from which they collected 400 applications. “We were happily overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of qualified applicants from within our small community,” said General Manager David Betham. “It was a challenging decision.” He indicated the entire executive team reviewed all the applications, and will keep the remaining ones on file for the next six months.

•     The walls go up on new Laie McDonald’s: 

It looks like the new Laie McDonald’s restaurant will be two stories tall. No word yet, however, on when it will open.

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.