May 2007

From the Editor...

Rochelle delaCruz

from the editor…

Lots to Do…

Maybe the holiday season is the busiest for you, but for us here in the Northwest, it’s Spring. This is when all the music and dancing starts. Undoubtedly you’ve noticed all the events already taking place and the month of May brings even more, including Keola Beamer, Ho`okena, Melveen Leed, Owana Salazar, among others. For those of us around Puget Sound, the big, annual celebration is with Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center. If you’re not from the area, you might consider driving in for this long weekend of music from around the world. This year in addition to kīhō`alu, `ukulele performances and workshops, a whole afternoon of hula and Tahitian dances, there will also be lots of Hawaiian music and some big name stars: Brother Noland, Kenneth Makuakāne and the Po`okela Street Band. Northwest Hawai`i Times will have a table at the Sunday afternoon hula show, so stop by or at least give us the chin-eyebrow head jerk as you head into Bagley Wright.

For those of us eventually moving back to Hawai`i, there will be other things going on that are equally riveting, and perhaps more long-term. I got all excited when Roy said he was heading to Kaho`olawe with students for spring break. What better way to revive that special island than to help restore vegetation and build community? And so my list of things to do when I go back home keeps getting longer: Pick rubbish off the beaches, plant koa seedlings up mauka, weed out invasive species… and now, plant native shrubs on Kaho`olawe.

Mahalo to Roy and his students for their commitment. ~RdC

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