MONDAY, JULY 2, 2018 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM 75¢
ISLAND’S MOST
REVERED GODDESS...
...PASSED
THROUGH
GENERATIONS...
...RUNS AS DEEP AS HER LAVA
Giving student-athletes a boost
BUSINESS-SUPPORTED COMMUNITY TAILGATES TO BENEFIT STUDENT-ATHLETES
KAILUA-KONA — A former
running back at Vanderbilt, Paul
Morgan, traded in his football helmet
and pads to sell insurance when
he arrived in Kailua-Kona. While
he is currently an agent with State
Farm, Morgan’s love for football
and helping student-athletes hasn’t
diminished.
“When I came over, I started
coaching at Kamehameha Schools,
and from there it just seemed like
a natural progression of being
involved in the community and
giving back,” Morgan said. “Back
in the day, I played at Vanderbilt
and played some arena football, and
after so many years you can’t do it
anymore, but you still want to figure
out a way to help your community.
So coming into the insurance
industry is a way that I can still be a
protector and still help people without
having to worry about running
through a brick wall.”
One of Morgan’s projects for community
outreach is Thursday Night
Lights, a benefit tailgate with local
businesses and student-athletes
across the island.
Businesses that want to participate
would buy in a minimum of
$250 to be a part of the tailgate, and
in turn, that money would go to a
student-athlete to be used for school
supplies, clothing, food or any other
needed items.
KALOKO–2 HOMES–2 ACRES
The community tailgates will be
Aug. 9, 16 and 23 at Old Kona
Airport Park. Thursday nights were
chosen in order to avoid scheduling
conflicts with high school football
junior varsity and varsity games
played on Friday nights.
Morgan is currently seeking businesses
to participate in the tailgate.
He believes the ones that have been
affected by the Kilauea eruption can
use the event as a way to showcase
that they are still up and running
despite natural disaster.
“In my mind, the timing is right
for this,” Morgan said. “Even if you
look at the economic perspective of
businesses who are going through
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Featuring: Rondine
INSIDE
NIX THE
NUKES
Bolton says
US has plan to
denuclearize
North Korea
PAGE 3A
▼
ICE IS NICE
Historic Honokaa
cafe returns
with nostalgia
and shave ice
NHN, 5B
▼
HI 87 LO 75 WEATHER, PAGE 5A
VOL. 50, NO. 183 20 PAGES
BY ELIZABETH PITTS
WEST HAWAII TODAY
EPITTS@WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM
State Farm employees Dora Ramirez, Anna White,
Paulette Graves, Pam Cheslock and Paul Morgan
are organizing benefit tailgates Thursday Night
Lights in Kailua-Kona to help student-athletes.
ELIZABETH PITTS/WEST HAWAII TODAY
INSURANCE AGENT, FORMER RUNNING BACK ORGANIZING EFFORT
SEE BOOST PAGE 7A
Madame
Pele’s story
The image of Pele appears in a 2017 Lava flow. PHOTOS BY LAURA RUMINSKI/WEST HAWAII TODAY
KAILUA-KONA — She is
creator. She is destroyer.
She is Madame Pele,
Hawaiian fire and volcano
goddess.
Her home is in
Halema‘uma‘u, atop Kilauea
volcano. But, right now, she is
traveling through lower Puna.
Her name has come up
frequently in the last month
amid the ongoing eruption in
Kilauea’s lower East Rift Zone
that has sent rivers of lava
down the volcano’s flanks to
the coast, wiping entire subdivisions
off the map while
covering nearly 10 square
miles.
But, really, who is Madame
Pele?
Her legend has been perpetuated
from generation to
generation through chants by
kumu dedicated to keeping her
story alive.
“Chants come to us from the
time of antiquity and someone
observed and created the
chant and passed it down,”
said Hawaii Community
College instructor Leialoha
Kaleimamahu, who is from
Kaimu in Puna. “The function
of Pele is to establish land for
all of us and the creatures who
live on the land.”
Those mo‘olelo — or oral
stories, tales, myths, chronicles
and legends — are like
any story told over and over
again: they get juicier over
time. Every time the story of
Pele was told, it got more magical.
So, Pele must have done
something great, because the
story is still perpetuated today.
Madame Pele’s
coming to Kilauea
There are many versions of
how Pele came to Hawaii.
“In one of several stories, it is
said that Pele falls in love with
her sister Namakaokaha‘i’s significant
other. In another story,
Pele kills the significant other,”
explained Kumu Keala Ching,
a Hawaiian cultural educator,
composer, songwriter,
and spiritual advisor to many
Hawaiian organizations.
Because of the conflict, Pele’s
elders instruct her to leave
Kahiki, the ancestral land.
“So, Pele leaves, along
with her siblings. She travels
with about seven Hi‘iaka sisters
along with her brother,
Kamohoali’i, the shark god,”
said Ching.
Kamohoali’i guides the
canoe to Hawaii, stopping
first at an island called Nihoa,
north of Ni‘ihau.
There, Pele digs her o‘o stick,
called paao, into the earth in
search of fire.
Flames rise from the ground.
But the moisture in the air,
which was her scorned sister,
Namakaokaha‘i, quenches the
fire.
So, Pele continued her
search, traveling south through
the archipelago of Hawaii, digging
her o‘o on each island.
But, each time, Namakaokaha‘i
continued to kill the fire.
Then, when she got to
Kilauea, on Moku o Keawe
(Hawaii Island), the moisture
was unable to extinguish the
fire because she was far from
the ocean.
BY LAURA RUMINSKI
WEST HAWAII TODAY
lruminski@westhawaiitoday.com
SEE PELE PAGE 6A
LAVA IS SEEN FROM FISSURE 8 IN THIS JUNE 29 PHOTO. COURTESY USGS
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