HANAPEPE — Arthur Brun had a full day of umpiring baseball, and another key game facing him yesterday morning. The Westside Falcons soccer players also had a full plate of games, but as the clock ticked toward the midnight hour,
HANAPEPE — Arthur Brun had a full day of umpiring baseball, and another key game facing him yesterday morning.
The Westside Falcons soccer players also had a full plate of games, but as the clock ticked toward the midnight hour, the soccer players showed no signs of the day’s hectic schedule.
“They’re dancing now,” said Jane Garma, one of the team mothers for the Falcons. “You would never think they were playing soccer all day, but that’s because they have the basket. We were named the best youth tent.”
Brun and Garma are both employees of Syngenta Seeds and shared their relay tales at the entrance to the Westside Falcons’ tent which attracted walkers with the aroma of kalua pig wafting through the night air.
The pair were among the hundreds of people who transformed Hanapepe Stadium into an American Cancer Society Relay for Life version of Tent City as pockets of light broke through the otherwise black void of night.
Pat Flynn, known throughout the ACS circles as the “Mother of Relay,” was preparing to take the stage for the midnight Fight Back Ceremony, something new for this year’s Relay, said Mary Williamson, the director for the Kaua‘i ACS.
“Come back, now,” Faith Shiramizu of the All-Saints encampment said over her cell phone in an effort at rounding up its walkers for the ceremony.
The midnight pause brought an end to a full schedule of activities that started with cancer survivors and fighters opening the night with a lap around the Circle of Hope, a large circle formed by luminaria remembering victims of cancer.
“You see that guy?” one walker who was resting near the stage said. “When we got here, he was reading a book in the shade of a tent, and when the walking started, he’s been walking ever since. He’s already been through four, or five shirts, and he doesn’t stop. He just keeps going. He’s a Marine.”
Tommy Patch had just come off the stage from performing his version of hip hop music, and was greeted by his mother, who said she had never been to a relay before.
“I was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, and this is my very first Relay for Life,” she said. “But everyone liked the way Tommy did his hip hop presentation, and this is a really nice event.”
Although ringed by homes, the sound levels were subdued. Off to one corner, near the survivors tent, one of the coaches from the Waimea High School boys volleyball team recovered from a defeat they suffered earlier in the night.
They were part of the Connie’s Fighters tent who recently hosted a softball tournament with the proceeds benefitting the ACS.
“We raised almost $17,000,” the coach said. “It’s all for cancer.”
Williamson said this year’s event hosted more than 55 teams walking and taking turns walking through the 12-hour event designed to remember victims of cancer and striding to eliminate cancer.
“It’s good they’re dancing, now,” one of the Falcons’ mothers said. “Tomorrow they’ll all be sleeping, so they can’t get into mischief.”
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com
