Stories by Laurel Smith

Author celebrates 90th birthday with book release

When Bill Fernandez works on a novel, he spends hours at a time researching and writing in his office, a converted garage behind his childhood home that his parents first bought in 1927, when his mother worked in a pineapple cannery making just 25 cents a day.

Teachers plead for safer conditions

LIHU‘E — Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School teachers lined the sidewalk outside of their Puhi campus Tuesday morning 6 feet apart, wearing masks, modeling a safety precaution that is all-but-impossible inside their full classrooms.

DOE: 26 COVID-19 cases in Kaua‘i schools this week

LIHU‘E — The state Department of Education reported 352 COVID-19 cases within schools between Sept. 17 and Sept. 23. Twenty-six of those cases were on Kaua‘i. Eight of those cases were not on campus within a week of when their cases were reported.