The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 21

4 Ml EXPANSION TAKES FLIGHT j- ft a tit tfi Get traffic alerts on your cell -Text HITRAFFIC to 44636 (4INF0) OBITUARIES A22 MILITARY A1 7 fi HonAdvLocal PAGE A21 MAY 23, 2010 LOCAL NEWS DESK: 525-8090 OR HAWAIIfcSH0N0LULUADVERTISER.COM 1 '-IT Isle families trace ties to '39 Pineapple Bowl mt mi 1 0u 4 -r Seventy-one years ago, the UCLA Bruins football team boarded the ship Matsonia for a 4'2-day trip to O'ahu to play the University of Hawai'i. On coach Bill Spalding's team were Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, two of the first African-American athletes who would go on to integrate the National Football League. Jackie Robinson, who would integrate professional baseball, joined the team later that fall. Congressional hopeful Strode meets one of dad's great buddies The story is almost too big for Hollywood. It involves a legendary film director, an exotic setting, football heroes, a chance meeting that leads to love; even World War II is part of the plot.

All these divergent elements come together in one man, who at 63, is just now Also playing for UCLA were two brothers from Hawai'i, Francis and Conkling Wai. The Wai boys, as everyone called them, were close friends of Washington and Strode. Though the team was the most diverse in the country, there was still discrimination in daily life, and the Hawaiian-Chinese-Caucasian Wai brothers banded together SEE CATALUNA, A24 LEE CATALUNA learning of his provenance. It started with a UH football game, when Hawaii was still a territory and much of the Mainland was still 5 LEE CATALUNA The honoiuiu Aaveraser Kalaeloa Strode, left, and Lambert Wai tell of their connection through football and John Ford films. FARRINGTON HIGH COMMENCEMENT City delays M.

i deairap 01 a its debris A in stream 5 f-tuT Ma'ili'ili work to start after departure of endangered birds BY GORDON Y.K. PANG Advertiser Staff Writer A cleanup of debris left in a Leeward stream bed by city workers won't begin until fall so as to not disrupt endangered Hawaiian stilts nesting there through the summer. Ironically, it was the improper placement of an estimated 1,500 cubic yards of concrete rubble, used asphalt, metal debris, soil and sediment in the bed of Ma'ili'ili Stream between February 2008 and May 2009 that apparently drew the birds there in the first place. Jeoffrey Cudiamat, director of the Department of Facility Maintenance, said in an e-mail that the removal of heavy vegetation from the banks of the channel created a clearing. "This clearing created an appealing area for the nesting of Hawaiian stilts, and a few of these birds nested there last summer," Cudiamat said.

"The city does not SEE STREAM, A23 Photos by KENT NISHIMURA The Honolulu Advertiser New graduate Eddie Kamae addressed his fellow Farrington High School graduates at yesterday's commencement exercises. On the basis of life experience, the school granted him the final credit he needed to qualify. Eddie Kamae a grad at 82 wry- ,0 '2- J- Ma'ili Miles Area of A 'J detail O'AHU a MA'ILI Ma'ili Beach Park The Honolulu Advertiser vv Hawaiian music icon gets diploma delayed 62 years BY STANLEY LEE Advertiser Staff Writer Eddie Kamae stood up and left Farrington High School some 60 years ago, bored with school and ready to create his own journey in life. He was one credit short of receiving his diploma. That journey led him to become an acclaimed 'ukulele virtuoso, a man synonymous with Hawaiian music, and a filmmaker.

Wearing a maroon gown like those of the school's graduating seniors and decked in lei, the 82-year-old Kamae officially completed his journey at Farrington yesterday afternoon. Kamae received his high school diploma at the school's commencement ceremony, showered by loud applause and shouts of "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie" from the class of 2010. He had left Farrington in 1948. "I said left to find my own way in life," Kamae said in an interview. As a senior in 1945, Kamae was drafted and spent Crash kills Wai'anae man stopped on H-l Myrna Kamae was there to see husband Eddie get his high school diploma.

She even moved his mortarboard tassel afterward to its new position of honor. V2 MAKAKILO Mile Woo KAPOLEI He became a member of the iconic The Sons of Hawai'i band, which played a role in the 1960s revival of Hawaiian culture. Music-was embedded in him. "It set my cause in life," Kamae said. "Music is the most important thing in my life.

I get into all the things because it has connections with music. My first teacher was a songwriter. He told me the important SEE KAMAE, A24 18 months in the Army. He returned to Farrington to complete his last year, but discovered the week before commencement that he wouldn't make it. "The final week before graduation, the teacher told me you can go to the whole process, but you can't get a diploma," Kamae said.

"I asked why and she said I lacked one credit." On the first day of summer school, "I was bored. I sat down for a half-hour, See video and more photos of the Farrington graduation, at KALAELOA H0N0LULUADVERTISER.COM O'AHU CD 3- Area -of detail 40 minutes, picked up my things and walked out of the class." Motorist died while checking tow line in right lane by Kapolei Advertiser Staff A Wai'anae man was killed early yesterday after he stopped his pickup truck in the right lane of H-l Freeway near Kapolei and got out to check the tow rope on a vehicle he was pulling. He was bent over between the two vehicles when the pickup he was towing was struck from behind by another vehicle. The impact drove the towed vehicle forward and the man was crushed between it and his pickup. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

His identity had not been released last night. Two teens in the Wai'anae man's truck were not injured. Nor was the driver of the towed vehicle, a 48-year-old Wai'anae woman. The accident happened about 1:35 a.m. on I I I Freeway west-bound, just west of the Kalaeloa Boulevard overpass.

Police said the 39-year-old Wai'anae man was driving a 2003 red Chevy pickup and was towing a 1991 white Ford pickup. Body of missing free diver found Ihe Honolulu Advertiser The tow rope had apparently become entangled on the axle of the second vehicle. As the man tended to the rope, a 1999 Dodge van hit the towed vehicle. The driver of the van, a 58-year-old Wai'anae woman, was treated and released for minor injuries at The Queen's Medical Center. Police said that alcohol and drugs did not appear to be factors in the crash.

It was unknown whether speed was a factor. The traffic fatality was the 29th of the year on O'ahu, compared with the same number at this time last year, police said. presence of a diving partner. Pat Johnson, owner of Deep Ecology, a North Shore dive shop, noted that conditions were windy yesterday. "It's not a place we commercially take divers to.

It's too unknown for commercial divers." Yesterday's search began about 9 a.m., according to the Coast Guard. Firefighters used their helicopter and boat to assist in the search. equipment that allows divers to spend extended periods of time underwater. Free diving has led to deaths on O'ahu before, including that of Sergio Goes. The local award-winning photographer died in a free-diving accident in 2008.

Even experienced free divers are at risk of blackout from oxygen deprivation. When that occurs, divers say survival can depend on luck and distance from the surface, or the Man discovered on the Waialua side of Ka'ena Point Advertiser Staff A diver was found dead off Ka'ena Point yesterday afternoon several hours after he had been reported missing. County lifeguards on personal watcrcraft, searching along with firefighters and the U.S. Coast Guard, found the diver on the Waialua side of Ka'ena Point, said Honolulu Fire Department spokeswoman Debbi Eleneki! Bryan Cheplic, spokesman for the city's Emergency Services Department, said paramedics pronounced the man dead at 1:57 p.m. His identity had not been released last night.

The man, believed to be in his 20s, had been free diving with another man. Free diving comprises any number of breath-hold diving activities, from spear fishing to competitive apnea involving specialized iA if i i ii i.