PO‘IPU — There were many people on Monday who wanted to connect to the past when sugar was king in Hawai‘i. “We have a unit on Plantation in school so I thought we’d come to meet some of the people
PO‘IPU — There were many people on Monday who wanted to connect to the past when sugar was king in Hawai‘i.
“We have a unit on Plantation in school so I thought we’d come to meet some of the people involved with the sugar plantation,” said a teacher from Kapa‘a who traveled to the Kukui‘ula Shopping Village for the Plantation Sugar Exhibit that preceded the Historic Movie Night. “This was a perfect opportunity to invite some of the people to visit the students and talk with them about the sugar industry.”
The exhibit and movie is part of the week-long Koloa Plantation Days celebration that celebrates the sugar heritage of Koloa and the South Shore.
Tim Dela Vega headlined the photographic exhibit, highlighting some of the personalities involved in the sugar industry while a video following the final days of the G&R Sugar operation played in the background, its audio overpowered by the stream of visitors connecting with the unique plantation lifestyle.
Lauren Calhoun, an after-school instructor of the Media Production Class at Elsie Wilcox Elementary School, was so moved by the closure of the sugar era, she picked up the project as one of her independent projects.
“When I came home after teaching public access video for three years in New York, the trucks were rolling with its final sugar loads,” Calhoun said between takes, Monday night. “I had done some sugar footage while I was in Kaua‘i High School, and the emotion was so strong on the closing of G&R, I decided I would revisit the footage and do more with it.”
Calhoun got the help of Kapa‘a High School graduate Kara Dastrup in doing oral histories of Kaua‘i residents involved in the plantation era.
Dastrup, a recipient of one of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation scholarships, said this was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up so took up Calhoun’s offer to “hold boom.”
“We’re recording history,” Dastrup said.
Following the exhibit, guests were ushered to the open field area adjacent to Merriman’s where a large screen and benches were set up to accomodate the Historic Movie Night, a new site for this year.
Veronica Lovesy of the Kukui‘ula Development Co. said the same setup may be used for other films this year.
