No one would have blamed Edee Bandmann if she had decided not to coordinate today’s Fourth Annual He Inoa No Kaumuali’i Parade, which begins at 10 a.m. from Vidinha Stadium in Lihu’e, and runs down Rice Street to the historic
No one would have blamed Edee Bandmann if she had decided not to coordinate today’s Fourth Annual He Inoa No Kaumuali’i Parade, which begins at 10 a.m. from Vidinha Stadium in Lihu’e, and runs down Rice Street to the historic County Building.
Besides the fact that she caught a bad cold, likely from the combined lack of sleep and stress associated with the parade, she also just finished up the grueling task of putting to his final rest the love of her life, husband John Bandmann.
“My husband came first,” she said.
But her substantial community involvement takes a close second, and she sees her continued involvement in coordinating what is going to be a small parade with lots of large units participating, as something she needs to do to keep herself busy, she said.
Memories of her late husband will be impossible to avoid, since he was the voice of the parade as the emcee from the days it went down the Puhi stretch of highway named for Kaua’i’s last king, Kaumuali’i.
Lopaka Bukoski will ably handle the parade narration chores today, Barbara Bennett is the ambassador of aloha (there is no marshal or grand marshal), and Na Hoku Hanohano Award winning members of Na Palapalai will perform at 2 p.m. at the historic County Building on Rice Street in Lihu’e at the ho’olaule’a after the parade.
On the lawn of the historic County Building, makahiki games will be set up.
Bandmann confirmed late Thursday that Darren Benitez will also fly to Kaua’i to perform at the historic County Building.
Over 30 entrants are anticipated for the parade, including representatives of the Lihue Baseball League, the national-champion Lihue Patriots Pop Warner football team, Miss Kauai Veteran Laura Hudson, the King Kaumuali’i Royal Court, representatives of Hawaiian societies, and many more.
An “oom-pa-pa band” on the Plantation Carriages wagon, pulled by the Clydesdale horses, will have Germans aboard, celebrating the 125th anniversary of the arrival of the first Germans on Kaua’i, she said.
Representatives of the Kauai Polynesian Festival will offer dances of the Pacific, as well as other halau.
“I think it’s a smaller parade,” Bandmann said.
