Adam Harju named editor of The Garden Island

There aren’t many people who can say they attended a Super Bowl and didn’t see a minute of the game live.

Adam Harju can. The San Diego State University

graduate served as a darkroom specialist for The Associated Press at Jack Murphy Stadium during Super Bowl XXXII in 1998, the same year he graduated from SDSU with bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science.

Beginning today, Wednesday, Dec. 28, he is the new editor of The Garden Island newspaper, replacing Chris Cook, who moved to Idaho to be with his wife Evelyn and son David.

They bought a home in Kellogg. Harju has had seven solid years of professional journalism experience, in photography, reporting, and editing, and most recently was associate editor and reporter at the California Communications publications of the Carmel Valley News, Del Mar Village Voice, and Rancho Santa Fe Review, all near San Diego.

Prior to that, he spent four and a half years in positions of progressive responsibility at the Mountain Democrat in Northern California as staff photographer, assistant city editor, and city editor for more than two years.

He is living in Kapa’a, and will soon be joined by his wife, Julie, and son Isaiah, 5, who is in kindergarten.

Harju (pronounced Harzhou), 36, said he knew he wanted to be a newspaper writer from the time he was 13, when a great aunt told him stories about her days as a journalist in the early 1900s in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“I now look forward to the key opportunity as the editor of The Garden Island, to me, a dream job in paradise, and am anxious to get to work with the team there in putting out a lively, community-oriented newspaper,” said Harju.

“My whole family is excited about becoming a part of the community of the island of Kaua’i. All three of us surf and hike, and one of us is really excited at the prospect of geckos on the walls,” he added.

“I look forward to meeting everyone at the newspaper and the community when I start my employment on December 28.”