Although Monday’s Kaua’i County Council candidate forum will focus primarily on wisdom and experience, one participant’s youthfulness has earned him a spotlight at the event. Dion Tyler Endo, a 19-year-old liberal arts student at Kaua’i Community College, has been chosen
Although Monday’s Kaua’i County Council candidate forum will focus primarily on
wisdom and experience, one participant’s youthfulness has earned him a
spotlight at the event.
Dion Tyler Endo, a 19-year-old liberal arts student
at Kaua’i Community College, has been chosen to ask questions of the 14 Kaua’i
County Council alongside two reporters from The Garden Island.
A reporter
for KCC’s on-line student newspaper, Ka Leo O, Endo said he thought having a
more youthful viewpoint in the forum was important, which prompted him to
volunteer for the spot.
Although politics is not a big passion in his life,
Endo said he stays informed on current events and issues.
“I keep up on
what goes on,” he insisted.
Having been raised in Hilo and moved to Kaua’i
more than a year ago, Endo said the environment and the economy – and the way
the two interact – should be discussed at the forum. Especially with the
recently announced closing of Amfac’s sugar operations on Kaua’i, he said,
county administrators need to find ways to boost employment opportunities on
the island.
“When the younger kids get out of school, and come back from
the mainland, they need good jobs to keep them here,” Endo said.
Endo said
he hopes to transfer soon to Western Montana College, where he plans to major
in journalism, and then pursue a career as a paramedic.
“So if being an
EMT doesn’t come through, I can always fall back on journalism,” he
said.
Joining Endo on the media panel Monday at Kaua’i War Memorial
Convention Hall will be the TGI’s Dennis Wilken and Lester
Chang.
Staff writer Matt Smylie can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 226)
and [msmylie@pulitzer.net]
