PUHI — When patrons of the Kaua‘i Composers Contest and Concert started trickling in to the Kaua‘i Community College Performing Arts Center, the new KCC events manager was trying to adjust to her new office located inside the theater. Renda
PUHI — When patrons of the Kaua‘i Composers Contest and Concert started trickling in to the Kaua‘i Community College Performing Arts Center, the new KCC events manager was trying to adjust to her new office located inside the theater.
Renda Bailey spent her first day as the college’s events manager last Wednesday, and for the time, has been occupying a desk in the college’s Office of Continuing Education and Training.
“She’s very enthusiastic,” said Barbara Bulatao-Franklin, who was on hand Monday night to help Bailey “learn the ropes” of the performing arts center.
“That’s what we’re looking for; someone who can get excited about this (the responsibility of booking events and coordinating the successful run of the event at the performing arts center).”
Reviewing the history of the center, its records and paperwork has been occupying the new events manager’s time for the first week on her job, but Monday night that all changed as Bailey spent some time in the audience, observing the patrons as they started filling the seats inside the concert theater.
Bailey’s mind is already grinding out some ideas for the center, but for the present, her main concern was the success of the Kaua‘i Composers Contest and Concert.
The lobby of the Performing Arts Center buzzed with excitement as various vendors lined the wall offering a variety of services.
Westside Fast Photo owners had a photo printer on hand so contestants and patrons could get photos of the event before they left the event Monday night. Mokihana Festival volunteers offered up a variety of logowear, and Masami and Jill Kouchi had their custom-made concert ‘ukulele on display so people could inspect the instrument before making a donation, Jill stitching the final biasing on the specially-made case for the ‘uke.
Audio technicians Kent Tanigawa and Raymond Duarte checked with Bailey and Bulatao-Franklin on final items for the Monday concert as well as the Tuesday-morning event featuring Kaua‘i’s keiki in a special children’s music competition.
Although Bailey’s background has spanned legal offices from Atlanta to Lihu‘e, Bailey started digressing from the legal field, moving into the executive directorship of the American Cancer Society Kaua‘i office in 1995, and then to the director’s office of the Head Start Program for the Child and Family Services.
All of this, Bailey said, was a building process for the job she started last Wednesday.
“I’m so excited,” Bailey said of her new job. “It seems like everything I’ve done in the past was leading up to this moment.”
As the theater doors closed to the start of the evening’s event, Bailey made one more round with Bulatao-Franklin to the upstairs audio and light booth before adjourning to the task of fitting into her new office.
Staff Writer Dennis Fujimoto may be reached at dfujimoto@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 253).
