We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Dr. Dean Andersen
Retired biology professor1966-97
Close, personal relationships with students...
Dean Andersen, who is originally from Monroe, Utah, served in the Korean war and then later returned to that country twice as a missionary. After earning his Ph.D. in entomology from the University of Utah, he started teaching at Church College of Hawaii in 1966:
I started off teaching microbiology, invertebrate zoology, entomology, parasitology and eventually marine biology. Then, when we started the general biology program, I taught biology for both general ed courses and for the majors.
Our first house in Laie was a duplex on Pu'uahi Street. The roof leaked in every room except our bedroom. One year I had to poke a hole in the ceiling to keep it from caving in. We envied the faculty houses on Moana Street, where we got in the next year and stayed until we built our own house on Wahinepe'e St. in the 1970s. We got that lot when the University came up with a policy for faculty members who wanted to build their own homes. We were one of the first to take advantage of it. Later, Zions Securities [now Hawaii Reserves, Inc. or HRI] allowed us to buy the lot.
The teaching was always good. Classes were generally fairly small, and we always had close, personal relationships with students. That was an enjoyable part of it. The main change in teaching style came with electronic media. I gradually turned my classes from lectures to student involvement, although the lab classes were always hands-on. Especially in the biology classes for majors, I tried to make them problem solving.
One of the big changes in biology was the requirement for major students to carry out independent research. I helped start that program in the 80s, which was part of an overall effort to put more burden of learning on the students. This is still one of the shining spots in the biology programs. I feel students were and still are doing graduate work at the undergraduate level.
For example, I remember Angie Ng from Hong, who was one of my early students, who did a project on the effects of sub-lethal doses of insecticides on mosquito development. She did quite a good job. There was also a Tongan girl who did a project on the salt tolerance of mosquito larvae.
Microbiology was my favorite subject. We had a lot of students working on water quality research. My next favorite classes were marine biology. We spent about half of our lab time out in the ocean, which made it especially enjoyable — kind of like getting paid to go to the beach. Shark's Cove, Goat Island and Kekela Beach [now called Kokololio Beach Park] were some of our favorite spots.
One of the most talked about field trips was the time we ran into a bunch of nudists out on Goat Island. One of the other professors once got stuck in a ditch near the nudist camp in Kahuku.
Right after retiring in '97, we moved to South Jordan, Utah, to be closer to our children and grandchildren. We felt our place was to be close to family. In that sense, we don't miss living in Laie, but we miss the people.
When we came, I heard a lot of people say they felt directed by the Lord. I never had that feeling, but I felt the Lord was telling me wherever you go, you serve the best you can. I started to feel that way when I was in the Army. I got the feeling that God's people are all over the world. I also had the feeling I would like to serve a mission in Korea, and that's where I ended up.
When I went on my mission in 1956, we went by boat. When it stopped in Hawaii, some people took us on a tour and we stopped at Laie. At that time the college was located just across from Goo's Store. They showed us the plans for the new campus, and in my journal I wrote that some day I would like to come back and teach.
Beth and I also served a proselyting mission in Korea where we spent most of our time in the office. I also wrote several manuals to help the missionaries teach English. Back home, we work in the Jordan River Temple and I volunteer at the local elementary school to help them in their reading and tutoring programs. I'm also doing some writing for our grandchildren, but nothing professional.
Regardless of where we travel, we run into former students. We also see a lot of the townspeople. In fact, the community still looks very familiar to us. In some ways the University has changed quite a bit, in some ways not at all. For example, the library and administration buildings are really different from when we first came, but the classrooms still seem very familiar. This is where the greatest changes should have occurred.
In any case, we greatly enjoyed our years here. The most enjoyable part was the people we knew. The surroundings are beautiful, and the islands are nice, but it was the people and their great diversity that we really enjoyed.
Dwayne Andersen
The first foreign student advisor (1965-72)
I came to Hawaii in December 1941 on my mission, just two weeks before Pearl Harbor was bombed. My mission assignment had been to Australia, but they couldn't get a visa. President Cox, the Mission President, didn't know I was coming, so I stood on the pier alone after he checked off all the other missionaries. When I told him President Grant had changed my mission to Hawaii, I was sent to Laupahoehoe on the Big Island.
After Pearl Harbor was bombed, we joined the National Guard and were used to help guard the coasts at night. We did our work part of the day. Since they couldn't bring any more missionaries, they asked us to stay; and I so I stayed about 33 months.
I came back in 1965 as a mission president in Japan. We chartered a plane and brought 132 adults and 29 children on the first Japanese temple excursion to Hawaii. At that time one of CCH President Cook's counselors had just picked up and left. That was my field, so he hired me as a counselor as soon as we got through with the Japanese Saints.
While I was a counselor I noticed no one was looking after the foreign students, so I suggested to President Cook that we do something about that so the foreign students could have a place they could get the help they needed because their needs were different than the regular students. He asked me to set it up, so I visited the west coast and checked out a few of the colleges, then came back and organized the foreign student office at Church College.
Because of my work at CCH I transferred to BYU to be the foreign student advisor there. I retired from BYU in 1986.
While I was at CCH, I also taught a special Book of Mormon class that was centered on personal application. President [Stepen L.] Bower even sent me to BYU to let the Book of Mormon committee know what I was doing.
When we first came they didn't have a house for us, so the put us in a beach home. When we went in my wife started crying. It was just one big room in the front, and some bedrooms in the back, with a shower. Termite droppings would be on the table in the morning. We could hear the rats running across the roof in the night, and the ocean roared so loud it took us a while to fall asleep. When the waves got high they came clear up under our house. At first the kids were really surprised, but they got used to it. They didn't want to move off the beach when they eventually moved us into one of the other houses.
I was on the High Council with President [Howard] Stone, who then made me a bishop when they divided the two college wards they had at that time. I was the bishop of the new CCH Third Ward for three years.
I think CCH had about 1,200 in those days, and I believe we nearly 200 of them were foreign students. I remember one, Isileli Kongaika, wanted to go home because he was so homesick. About seven or eight years ago we came back here to visit, and I walked into the office of the foreign students and Isileli was there. He turned around, hollered, jumped up, threw his arms around me and said, "You saved my life. I've been a stake president, mission president...and it's all because you were able to convince me to stay in school."
I see people who have been here, and gone back. They're contributing in their home countries and making contributions everywhere. The Polynesian Cultural Center also gives these young people an opportunity to express themselves, gain self confidence, and develop interaction and social skills that they would never have by going to any other college.
They're very fortunate to have this institution that understands cultures and has began to prepare them to go back and be of service in their countries. That's what I wanted to do when I set up the foreign student office — to get them to go back, to help their own people. And that's what happened. With the Polynesian Culture Center, that just makes it a very precious experience.
I wish them well, because they need to get prepared for the days that are ahead. The Lord needs right now people who are dedicated to the Church. The Church needs leaders who will carry out the things that need to be done in these latter days; and the students trained here are some of the very special people who will do that.
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Gerald Bohnet
Professor, Travel and Tourism Management1978-2002
A way prepared:
For years, I had listened to the radio program, Hawaii Calls, that originated in Waikiki. The music and the sounds of Hawaii made it seem like such a marvelous and exciting place to live. As a new public school teacher in 1959, I was amazed to learn that the Church actually had a school in the Hawaiian islands called the Church College of Hawaii. One of my fellow faculty members was actually a relative of Owen Cook, then president of the college. I remember asking my friend what he thought it would take to teach there and would he be able to influence President Cook on my behalf.
Well, of course, he didn't and the years went by without any further thought about teaching school or living there. I was, after all, a Canadian living in Canada, and this was a school in the U.S. Fast forward to 1977: There were tremendous changes going on in my professional life. I actually took time away from the profession to spend time in the business world. Out of all that came a desire to return to teaching but at a different level. I had a master's degree at that point, but was not using it to real advantage.
As a subscriber to The Church News, it was of great interest to read in an issue, sometime around 1976, a special feature about the Church College of Hawaii, now renamed BYU-Hawaii. The focus of the feature was on the travel and tourism program offered in the Business Division at that time. I had spent the previous 10 years working in the travel and tourism industry as well as teaching. I felt that my experience might just qualify me for consideration in teaching in such as program as was offered at BYU-Hawaii. I was so excited about the prospect that I immediately wrote them a letter of inquiry. The department chair at that time responded that there were no openings, but that things might be changing in the near future and they would keep my letter of application on file. With that news, I promptly forgot about the program again.
However, the next 12 months would see many changes taking place in the lives of our family. We decided that we would move to the U.S. and seek employment there. Our choice of location was somewhere in Utah near BYU in Provo. Since my wife was an American citizen, she could petition on my behalf for permanent residency. We began the process, expecting it to take at least three months. In fact, it took only three weeks and in November of 1977 we sold our home in Canada and moved to Spanish Fork where we purchased another home.
It was both a frightening and a trying time, since we had made the move without actually having a job to move to. Once in Spanish Fork, our mail began taking the usual steps of following our move, first going up to Canada and then back to our new address. In time we received a copy of The Church News, now several weeks old. While thumbing through it, my attention was riveted on a page that contained job announcements for various positions at BYU-Hawaii. There, leaping out at me, was one that was in the area of Travel and Tourism Management.
Could this be an answer to our prayers for work that we had so earnestly been petitioning the Lord about? I decided to immediately write them a letter to see if the position was still available. No, I remember thinking, I would call instead. When the call went through, it was answered by the division's secretary, who said "that the division chairman, James Bradshaw, was not in at the moment. Would I like to leave a message?" I explained who I was and the reason for my call. I mentioned that I had sent in a letter of application nearly a year earlier and that it might still be on file. I asked that my name be placed into consideration if the position had not yet been filled.
Later that afternoon, I received a phone call from Brother Bradshaw who indicated that they had been trying to get hold of me, but had not been successful. They were unaware that I had moved to the U.S. and had been trying to find me in Canada. "Yes," he replied, "my original file was in front of him and they were interested, since the position had not yet been filled." He would send out the official application that day and they would respond to it as soon as it was returned.
Thus began the process that would, in time, include interviews with then-President Dan Andersen from BYU-Hawaii while he was on business at BYU Provo, and in time a General Authority interview with Dilworth S. Young. With all things considered, I was offered the position to begin the school year that fall (1978). It was a dream come true. When President Andersen asked me during my interview with him whether I was prepared to commit myself to staying for at least four years, I found the question puzzling but was quick to respond, "no problem."
When we had left Canada nearly a year earlier, there was nothing to suggest that such an opportunity would come our way. Had we not gained our permanent residency and were legally able to work in the U.S., it would all have been for naught. Being unemployed during that time was a humbling experience that made our resolve to do all that we could to further the work of the Lord while associated with His university.
As a side note, I had occasion to call Brother Bradshaw on that fateful day in June of 1978 when the Church made their announcement relative to "all worthy male members being given the Priesthood." I had heard the announcement early that day and had nearly driven off the road with excitement. I asked Brother Bradshaw, "Did you hear the announcement from the Church today?" When he explained that he hadn't, I related it to him. The phone line went silent for what seemed like a long time. I finally asked, "Are you still there?" His reply was simply, "Wow!"
Our arrival in Honolulu on August 1, 1978, and the trip out to Laie brought home to us what a marvelous event was occurring in our lives. During the next 24 years, that enthusiasm would never diminish, even though there were still times of personal and professional tribulation.
Without a doubt, we have always felt that the Lord's hand was very much involved in having us become a part of that great institution and that He had prepared the way for us to be there.
[Brother Bohnet, who had been living in Spanish Fork, Utah, after his retirement, passed away on September 19, 2005.]
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Dr. Russell B. Clark, M.D.
1962, 1968-70
Centenarian doctor still visits Laie and the campus
Dr. Russell B. Clark who was 104 years old as of December 2004 when he gave this interview still visits Laie regularly and is in amazingly good health.
Dr. Clark, a general practitioner, was born in Montpelier, Idaho, on Nov. 19, 1900. He clearly remembers Joseph F. Smith was president of the Church when he was growing up, and he served a mission in Florida in 1919.
After graduating from the University of Utah, he completed medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago in 1930. In fact, his son, Steve, noted that Dr. Clark was on duty when the victims of the ill-famed St. Valentine's Day gangster massacre were brought into the hospital. While he was still in Chicago, President Heber J. Grant set him apart as a high priest and member of the first Chicago stake high council.
Though he retired from medicine, he's still active in managing some of his real estate holdings; and in October 2003 he was recognized as "America's oldest worker" by the U.S. Department of Labor. He now lives in Orem, Utah, has five children and 88 other descendants.
Dr. Clark recalled he first visited Hawaii on vacation in 1954 with three of his children, and returned again when President McKay dedicated the campus in 1958.
In the early 1960s, "President Owen Cook and Dr. Taylor at BYU asked me to come over and take care of the students and faculty. There weren't any other doctors here then," said Dr. Clark, who soon left his practice in Artesia, California, to come to the Church College of Hawaii for one year.
"It was a beautiful campus struggling to become larger," Dr. Clark continued. "The students were outgrowing it. They were very healthy. The ailments were not very serious two or three appendices. We would take them down to the hospital in Kahuku."
"I think we had an outstanding faculty. They were very courteous and loyal. There were not too many illnesses or any operations that I remember. The labor missionaries were also among my patients, but there were very few calls. They were very healthy."
"After we got here, they didn't have enough professors, so the dean, Dr. Kay Anderson, asked me to teach three health classes," Dr. Clark said. His son, Steve, added that they "lived in one of the women's dorms for a while, because there weren't any other vacancies."
"Then they found a home for us on Temple Beach," Dr. Clark continued. "We had brought a TV with us, turned it on, but found out there was no reception.
"I came back in 1968 for two more years. At that time they wanted to build a health center. In the meantime, we were using one of the bungalows behind the post office."
Dr. Clark's sons, Robert and Steve, took advanced classes at the university while still students at Kahuku High. "Robert is a family practitioner in Payson, Utah. He also is very involved in the Church's humanitarian program. He goes to China a lot and gives neonatal health classes," said Steve, who remembers taking a circular slide rule course from Brother Richard Coburn, chuckling at the memory of the outdated technology.
In his spare time, Dr. Clark enjoyed playing golf at Kahuku. He would also take his kids to Kahuku Theater for the movies that changed every night. "Of course, you had to bring your own mosquito punk," Steve added, "or buy it at the snack counter."
Today, Dr. Clark appreciates the large campus, "that can take care of more students. It has grown exceedingly since my days. The buildings are more beautiful and have up-to-date equipment."
"After leaving in 1970, I looked forward to coming back on vacation, because I was so busy in my practice that I couldn't get away except for a brief visit once a year," said Dr. Clark, who estimates he's been to Hawaii about 50 times. "This is one of my favorite places to visit."
Dr. Clark and his wife, Donna, who is a "much younger" 86, served a mission in Jamaica in 1980 "giving patriarchal blessings."
The centenarian Dr. Clark attributes his longevity to "good genes. I have an aunt that lived to be 106, an uncle that lived to be 105, a brother who lived to be 100-and-a-half, and a 'baby sister' who's 97. She still serves as a hospital volunteer in Salt Lake City."
He added he takes no medication. His diet: "Not too much meat, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and two quarts of fluids a day. I love fruit juices."
Dr. Clark also exercises regularly. "When I was younger, it was riding horses, tobogganing, sports and working. Now it's walking. I've been in about four marathons," he said, adding he recently participated in the senior Olympics in St. George, Utah, including the 50-yard-dash and the 440 events.
"Basically it was walking, but I got two ribbons. The closest competitors were only in their 90s."
"I look forward to another year," he added. "I'm not the time keeper."
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments.
Dr. Greg Gubler
History professor and BYU-Hawaii Archivist (retired)1982-2005
Dr. Greg Gubler an interdisciplinary specialist on China, Japan and Korea came to BYU-Hawaii in 1982 after working for six years in the Church Genealogical Department as the Senior Research Specialist for East Asia.
He recalls that was the time when the group of students from the People's Republic of China came for the first BYU-Hawaii/Polynesian Cultural Center Asian Executive Management Program, six of whom were in his Modern China class: "It was really an exciting experience. They were the cream of the crop from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. It reminded me of teaching a graduate class I had done previously while an interim faculty member at the University of Florida. Included in the group, we found out later, was the daughter of the Premier of China [who had enrolled in cognito]. Several went on to high postings with the United Nations and embassies in the Chinese foreign service."
"In 1985 I was asked to get involved with the centennial of Japanese immigration to Hawaii," continues Gubler, who served his mission in Japan and still speaks fluent Japanese. "I went to high schools around the islands and gave a whole series of lectures, which started an annual round of genealogy seminars. I've done dozens of these things ever since."
"In addition, I was called by the Regional Representative to be the trainer in Japanese extraction in Honolulu in 1985. We set up the system for Japan. We wrote up all the manuals for extraction programs in Japan, and extracted many records as a pilot project to show the Saints in Japan it could be done. Essentially, I taught the Japanese paleography to Japanese in Hawaii, one night a week until 1992," he says, adding he also served as director of the Family History Center at the Laie Hawaii Temple for three years. "I still get calls from all over on how to do research and how to translate."
Given his special research talents and insights, it seemed a natural progression when Gubler became the BYU-Hawaii Archivist in 1991. "Ever since, I've really enjoyed helping the community people find photos and journals. I've read almost all the Hawaiian missionary journals."
"The idea of traveling without purse or script is really interesting to me, to read about the things the missionaries ate and the struggles they went through. It makes you appreciate the conveniences and how much better the missionaries have it now."
"We've been a big resource for the administration, such as the 'Pioneers in the Pacific' event in 1997 and the PCC anniversaries. We helped Lanny Britsch, David Hannemann, and Alf Pratte with their books, and lots of faculty and students with their research projects and even dissertations. We have also had many high school students visit the Archives for 'history day' projects," says Gubler, who notes the Archives houses "a very good oral history collection, thanks to Brother Ken Baldridge."
"Of course, we have a lot of the records for the university, on the Church in Hawaii, the PCC, HRI and the Hawaii Library Association. We also probably have about 20,000 photos, and 47,000 slides so much that like most archives, we measure our documentation in linear feet."
Such devotion to detail has also led to another unusual distinction for Gubler last year when he was named Seasider Fan of the Year. He and his son, Lance, "attended every basketball game in the Cannon Activities Center and only missed two volleyball games while I traveled since we moved here," Gubler says.
He and his wife, Betty, who has been an English Department adjunct instructor since 1982, and Lance have moved near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to be closer to their daughter Amy a 1993 BYU-Hawaii graduate who earned a Ph.D. in 2000 from UH Manoa in Medical Physiology.We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Dr. Dale Hammond
Retired BYU-Hawaii chemistry professor1959-2003
Dr. Hammond started CCH chemistry program
Chemistry professor Dale Hammond retired on July 1, 2003, after teaching at BYU-Hawaii for a total of 36 years. He and his wife, Carol, are currently part-time missionaries serving as directors of the Laie Family History Center.
Hammond's association with the university began in 1959 when he and Carol came to Hawaii for their honeymoon. At that time, the Church College of Hawaii was just four years old.
"Everything was sugar cane all around the community then. The old school and mission home were still up," Hammond said. "At CCH we had the McKay building, what's now the General Classroom Building and what is now the School of Business."
"There was nothing commercial here except for Goo's and Sam's store," she added. "The shopping center, which started in 1969, has been a real boon; otherwise, we had to go to Kaneohe or Wahiawa to do our shopping. We made $4,400 our first year. Of course, doctor visits were only three dollars."
Hammond had earlier attended Rick's College
in Rexburg, Idaho, and served a two-year mission in Denmark for the Church.
He graduated from BYU in Provo in 1959 with a degree in chemistry and joined
the 36-member CCH faculty that same fall. "I'm the one who established the
chemistry program here. I was the first chemistry teacher that Church College
had," he said.
In his early teaching career Hammond also taught math, tumbling, and even
folk dancing. He also established the Intercollegiate Knights service club
program on campus: "We were in charge of ushering for the grand opening of
the Polynesian Cultural Center in 1963," he said.
The following year Hammond started work on his doctoral program in chemistry at the University of Hawaii, where he also taught half-time under the National Science Foundation and other national grants. His studies included research on volcanoes and moon rocks, leading to a post-doctoral offer from NASA; but after earning his Ph.D. in 1971, he returned to teaching full-time in Laie.
With the exception of a three-month assignment in Samoa to teach for the Church Education System in 1975, as well as a three-year leave of absence in the early '80s to do private research and be close to his parents in Las Vegas, Hammond and his family have lived in Laie ever since. They built their own home in 1978 and all of their seven living children were born here and attended local schools.
Hammond has been very involved in community affairs over the years. He was one of the early Laie Community Association presidents, helped start the lease-to-fee property conversion process in the late 1970s so homeowners in Laie could buy their land, and played a key community role in establishing the Laie Water Reclamation Facility.
Recently giving the keynote address at the 2YC3 Conference on Chemical Education in New Orleans, Hammond said that he appreciates how his career has evolved over the years. "When I came it was chalk and eraser," he said. "Lab work was totally bench work with no instrumentation at all. Now we use extensive instrumentation, even in our general chemistry class, collecting data into computers. We can collect superb data in two or three minutes that we could never have gotten before."
"I loved what I was doing," Hammond added. "When I got my doctorate, I knew I wanted to teach in a small college, so I designed my program with a broad exposure to a lot of things. That's allowed me to also teach oceanography, geology, and natural biology classes with Phil Bruner that have included four-day hikes on the neighbor islands. We've hiked Haleakala crater [a volcano on Maui] 10 times."
Hammond noted, "many of our chemistry students go on for Ph.D.'s at prestigious universities. Every one of them has said they were well prepared by the background they got at BYU-Hawaii."
He also feels today's students are better prepared spiritually when they come to BYU-Hawaii. "There are more of them going on missions now. I've grown tremendously spiritually because of the many church callings I've had in Laie," he said.
Since retiring, Hammond does some work with a mainland group that's developed an instrument to collect data from laboratory experiments in chemistry in addition to their missionary service in the Laie Family History Center.
"The thing I miss the most is working with the students, especially those students who were really eager to learn," Hammond said. "I loved teaching the students. I think any kind of student will do well here, but the student who is less sure of himself, or is not an aggressive leader, is better nourished here because of the personal attention they get."
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Dr. Jack V. Johnson
Retired mathematics professor and administrator1966-2004
Affecting student attitudes for the better...
Jack V. Johnson, a BYU-Hawaii mathematics professor for 37 years and a former University administrator, retired Jan. 1, 2004, and said he is looking forward to writing and resuming painting.
"This was my first job teaching. I came in 1966 when the campus was only eight years old," reminisced Johnson, a former BYU-Hawaii associate vice president of academics who also served as the first full-time dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Originally from Preston, Idaho, Johnson earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Idaho State University. When he started looking for a teaching position, he recalled, "I had applied at five different locations, and could have gone to four of them. The Lord made it clear to me through the witness of the Holy Ghost that I was supposed to come here."
One of the reasons for that decision became clear to him after he'd been in Laie for two years: Johnson married Cassandra Hom ('70, Mathematics), a CCH student from Honolulu who had taken three math classes from him. The couple now has seven children all of whom have attended or are attending BYU-Hawaii. Sister Johnson is still an adjunct faculty member in math at BYU-Hawaii.
Johnson is a familiar figure to many, even if they never took a math class from him, as he zips around campus and the community in his motorized wheel chair. He explained the wheelchair is the result of his gradual "downhill slide of muscle strength" ever since he was a baby.
"My parents took me to a specialist when I was 18 months old. They were told I wouldn't live for more than a year." His parents took him to other specialists, "and we tried a lot of different things over the years, but every single diagnosis was different. They didn't know what I had. When I was in junior high school we sort of gave up."
Still, Johnson didn't let his handicap stop him. For instance, at Idaho State he won the dormitories table tennis singles championship; and the first year after he arrived in Laie, he and the late Richard Coburn, a friend from Idaho State and a CCH math colleague, took the dormitories table tennis doubles championship, at a time when the game was very popular.
"I started using a motorized wheel chair in '85 when I became division chair. I felt like I needed a way to get around the widespread departments," he said, adding that after he broke his leg in 1993, he was no longer able to walk or stand. "The fact of the matter is I would have probably been in a wheelchair within a year anyway."
Johnson feels his disability has actually helped him in some ways. "If you're different, then people notice you. What you do with that attention will determine how they feel about you, and how much they learn. I don't really think it affected the quality of my teaching, but I think it affected my students' attitudes for the better."
Asked to reminisce a little more, Johnson said "there have been fabulous changes on campus over the years. We have grown and matured so much. I firmly believe that we're a finer institution. I think things get better every year."
Johnson also said he especially recalls "the period of time when we were just breaking into relationships with China. I'll never forget the time President [Elliott] Cameron went back to his office and had two messages: One was to call Salt Lake and the other was to call the White House," he said, explaining the Premier of China wanted to visit BYU-Hawaii after meeting with President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
He added some of his students, especially from his earlier teaching years, "became and remain very dear friends."
At 62, Johnson said he also felt inspired that it was time to retire. "I had the feeling that I'd been released," he said. "Ecclesiastes says it well: There's a season for all things. There was a time for me to teach. There was a time for me to be an administrator. There's a time for me to retire. I have no regrets about stepping down and retiring."
"I have about three books I want to write. I want to do a teaching newsletter every quarter to my family, giving them parenting and marriage tips. I want to get back into my genealogy, and I want to start painting again, which I haven't done since I got married," Johnson continued, noting he works mainly in oils.
"BYU-Hawaii has been a wonderful place to work. As far as I'm concerned, it's been perfect," Johnson said. "If some wizard had come and said to me, Jack, you could have any job you want, I would have said I want this one right here."
(Reprinted from the BYU-Hawaii Alumni eNewsletter, January 2004)
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Dr. David H. Miles
Professor, Chemistry and Computer Science1960-91
...started the computer science program
Excerpted from a February 27, 1986, oral interview: Brother Miles, who is originally from Price, Utah, graduated from BYU in chemistry in 1952 and received his doctorate in organic chemistry in 1957 from Iowa State University, before starting to teach at Church College of Hawaii in 1960.
One of the interesting aspects about coming here is that I was serving on the high council of the San Antonio Stake and had to travel from Corpus Christi to San Antonio, and the other high councilman I traveled with was Dr. Clarence Cottam. Clarence was one of the three people who were chosen by President [David O.] McKay and sent out here to investigate establishing a college in Laie.
While I was serving, Brother Kenny [Kenneth] Bennion, who was president of the LDS Business College, came down to a conference, and he and I and Clarence got to talking and we found out there was an opening in chemistry at the Church College of Hawaii.
[When we arrived] the buildings here were about a year-and-a-half old. Just before I came the college had about 700 students, roughly, and we were just in the process of trying to get accreditation [as a] four-year [school]. We were only a two-year school. We were just beginning to teach the third and fourth years.
When I first arrived in Hawaii there were no faculty homes. They were just starting to build the faculty homes on Moana Street. Along Naniloa Loop there were some frame houses...but these were built for the [labor missionary] construction people. Along the highway they had hauled in a lot of old ancient homes...and the home my wife and I lived in was where the Laniloa Lodge [Laie Inn] now stands.
We lived in [that] old house for about a year and then the new faculty homes were completed. They were [also] getting ready to build the Polynesian Cultural Center, and that started in our backyard [with] a lot of construction, before they decided to buy our home back from us...for $5,000. [After living on Moana Street for 13 years, then working in Utah from 1973-77, the Miles built a home on Hukilau Beach, which after he retired they eventually sold to English professor Ned Williams].
[When] I came in 1960...there were only two other Ph.D.s on campus: President Wootton and Dr. Billie Hollingshead. People like Dr. Joseph Spurrier and Dr. Jerry Loveland and so forth when they had come to the college originally it was a two-year college and they were hired with master's degrees; [so] Dr. Nephi Georgi [and other faculty] later went back and finished their degrees. After I had been here only one year I was made chairman of the Physical Science Department. We didn't have divisions at that time.
I served as chairman under President Wootton for part of the time and President Owen J. Cook... My general feelings about the two is that President Wootton was more aloof, whereas President Cook had essentially an "open door" policy: Anybody could go into his office almost any time and talk over problems. President Wootton tended to be more reserved. They were both very capable administrators...
When I first came here there was no computer science. In fact, very few schools had anything in computer science. Computers were just barely coming on. We'd had a course in slide rules and they were getting electronic calculators, so we started teaching [those], and then I started to find out more about computers. I wanted to learn.
So I started teaching a beginning course in computer science using a Hewlett-Packard calculator that was programmable. Then we used a terminal in the chemistry laboratory...and had this teletype connected through a telephone line to Honolulu, so that one student at a time could type his program on punch-paper tape and then dial up the computer and send his program through a telephone line. [Next] we started to get punch cards on. We'd punch our cards here and run them into town, and two days later we'd go back and pick up the programs and analyze them.
Our first main computer was actually the same kind we were using on the telephone line. That, as I recall, was about 1970. [It was,] maybe '72 that we got a computer on campus.
We were [still] just teaching one computer course. Later we developed it into two, just about the time I went to Provo. When I left we had a computer programmer at PCC, paid by PCC, who was programming for both the college and PCC. His name was Dale Simpson and he taught one of the classes.
After we came back, we had a bigger computer on campus. Shortly after that Brother [Ernest] Carey came on and we started to develop our first associate degree in computer science. Then about two years ago [i.e. 1984] we developed the CIS [computer information system] degree.
[Asked what changes he would like to see come about, Dr. Miles replied]: ...a full computer science degree. I think that would help us considerably. We have recommended that we have a separate computer science building, as a matter of fact.
The complete transcript of Dr. Miles' oral interview is available in the BYU-Hawaii Archives, located in the Joseph F. Smith Library.
Barbara Miller Elkington
English Professor1963-2001
I was the fortunate one
Barbara Miller was working on her master's degree at BYU in Provo when she saw a job interview sign for Church College of Hawaii. "I had a good friend who was teaching over here named Ralph Barney, and so I went in to tell the interviewer to say hello to him."
The interviewer turned out to be President Wootten, who offered her a position.
"When I arrived I was picked up at the airport. It was late at night. I got off the plane and I could smell flowers," she recalled. "I couldn't see anything when I got here, so I got up fairly early in the morning and it was still. I was staying in the dorm overnight, and I walked around the campus. There was a gate over on the side of the campus. going into the PCC. I walked through the gate...nobody around...and walked all around inside the PCC, and met people from New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa."
"I was just thrilled. It was such a totally different experience than I had expected, to have that sort of international paradise kind of approach to things. The campus itself seemed quite small because I'd been on Provo...and very diverse," Elkington continued.
"One of the first things I got to do, after I'd been here a week or two, was go to a Tahitian Luau and eat banana and papaya poi. Later on I found lupulu, and I knew I was going to like the very wonderful, tasty delicious food."
Elkington remembered, "We didn't have many of the things we have now. There was Goo's store, and there was the other little store, and that was it. And then there was Tanaka's store over in Kahuku and the IGA over there. Foodland opened a long time later, but the Hauula shopping center opened in the 70's."
"I didn't have a car, but there was this lovely man with a station wagon. If you wanted to go to town you called him up, and he came and picked you up in the morning at your house. You rode into town with him and wherever you wanted to go he dropped you off. Then he would bring you back in the evening."
Asked for some of her earliest memories of the university, Elkington said, "President Wootten and his wife invited the new faculty over to their house for dinner. I guess there were three or four of us. I can also remember Ross Esplin, who was the head of the English department at that time. I was so impressed with his dedication, because he was losing his eyesight and he would read essays from the students with a magnifying glass sitting right in front of his face. I thought, what dedication he had to his assignment to continue to try and do the job, and fulfill what he was supposed to be doing."
"I taught English and did some of the journalism classes for a while, helped administer the Ke Alaka'i, and for one year worked with the year book, Na Hoa Pono. That was in '64, I think."
"I found the other faculty members were very friendly," Elkington continued. "The president's office was where McKay Suite 103 is now, to the side of the foyer. Anybody could just go in. In fact, I was late for class one day and a student went in to the president's office and said, 'Where's my English teacher?' "
"It was a very small group. We all knew each other. I can remember in '65 we had a temple outing for the faculty, and we could all go together. That was very nice. There were about 600-700 students."
Elkington said she sometimes describes what teaching at BYU-Hawaii was like by describing her English 111 class in 1980: "There were 30 students plus me, only five who were American citizens counting me, and three of those were from Hawaii. All the others were from somewhere else. We had a boy from South Africa, a young man from Korea, students from Tonga and Samoa, and all over."
"It was just such a rewarding, noteworthy experience; and how fortunate I was. I hope they had a good time. I had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed that interchange. We tried to do things which helped us share cultures."
"For example, I had a student from Vietnam who wrote an essay about how she had gone to the hospital to see her father, who was a soldier. When she got to the hospital they told her he had died, and his body was in the morgue out in the back. She went out there to look for her father's body, and there was a air raid; she spent the night in that room, and yet she survived that experience and managed to get here. She was going to manage to get through school. I was so impressed. I've never forgotten her; and that's I think true of so many of our students: They come with experiences that we can't even grasp, and they must have tremendous courage and desire. I've tried always to remember that."
Elkington said there were differences and problems, of course, but "the Church brings us together under an umbrella, that most of us are willing to accept the differences because we know what we are similar in that we are indeed all brothers and sisters and children of a Heavenly Father."
For this, and other reasons, she added she "never felt like I was making a sacrifice. Being here was a tremendous experience. I almost always felt lucky to be here, almost always. I think most people felt like there was an opportunity here, that we had something special that we could do. There were times that when I felt like that walk down the hallway in that administration building was sort of meant to be, that there was a reason why we were here."
"I think the last two or three years that I was on campus, I realized that I was really, really fortunate to be here, to be a teacher, to have students at least sit and listen, and act interested. What a blessing that was, and the opportunity to maybe open some doors and give them vistas that maybe they wouldn't have gotten otherwise."
"For example, I've thought about Norman Kaluhiokalani who was in my 1964 English 101 class. I couldn't pronounce his name. I'd sit in the office and practice, trying to say Kaluhiokalani, and then I'd go to class and say 'Norman Khh.' And look where he is now. He went on from that beginning English class, where he had come from Kaneohe in the Navy, I think, and came back to school. He got his degree, went on and got his master's degree, and his Ph.D. Now he's teaching here on this campus."
"You can't ask for more reward than to see something like that. I hope somewhere in many, many places there are many students that maybe remember me and maybe have done some things that they might not have been able to do otherwise because I said something, or did something, or opened a door for them. So, I'm a better person than I would have been otherwise."
"I also have six wonderful children as a result of being here, who grew up in a place that made them very different people than they would have been otherwise. They are better people because they grew up here, and that's certainly a blessing. I'm certainly a better person because I've spent over 40 years here."
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments.
Dr. Phillip Smith
Retired sociology professor, administrator and reference librarian1972-2005
Dr. Phillip Smith came to Church College of Hawaii in 1972 as a young sociology associate professor "thinking we'd be here two-to-four years. I like Church education and warm weather, and BYU-Hawaii sounded interesting. But this place grows on you, and we've fallen in love with it," he says.
A few years after Smith arrived, based on some of his writings, President Dan W. Andersen appointed him Director of Planning and Institution Research, where he served until 1982. "We put together proposals for the Board of Trustees ever year and did a number of other projects," he says.
"Part of that responsibility included serving from 1976-82 as administrative liaison officer between the Polynesian Cultural Center and the college. I worked part-time for them and part-time here. My job was to try to look for ways and carry out assignments that would bring the two institutions closer together. One project resulted when the Center wanted to fund something at BYU-Hawaii that would help in the study and advancement of knowledge about Polynesian culture. This effort resulted in pulling various prior efforts and activities together into the Institute for Polynesian Studies, which is now called the Pacific Institute."
Following an exchange year at BYU in Provo in 1982-83, Smith returned to full-time teaching, but by 1990 concerns for his voice contributed in part to his accepting a transfer to his current assignment as a reference librarian.
"I only have one vocal chord that works," he explains. "I had a tumor removed from my neck when I was 34, and when the doctor operated, he had to sever the nerve to one of my vocal chords. When I woke up, I discovered I sounded like the 'cookie monster.' That sound lasted until surgery a year later, after which I could talk somewhat better. I used to sing in operas, but that was over. I'm sure I'm hard to hear sometimes, and my voice would get awfully tired teaching a full load; but I'm glad I've been able to work. Moving to the library probably saved my career. Otherwise my voice would probably have given out a long time ago."
Smith says he and his wife, Ruth Ann, who has been a part-time English faculty member for the past 22 years, plan to move to Provo, Utah, and serve their first mission together soon after; but he recognizes they will miss Laie.
"BYU-Hawaii is one of the great places to work, and we love Laie. This campus and community is a wonderful laboratory of intercultural understanding. We live peacefully. My kids have grown up color blind, and it's wonderful for them and us," he says. "The Lord loves everybody regardless of their ethnicity. The only thing that means anything to Him, I believe, is personal righteousness."
Wylie Swapp
Retired Art Professor, 1955-88
Wylie Swapp, who is originally from Nevada, served as a bombardier in Word War II, where he flew 25 missions over Germany. After, he used his GI Bill to go back to school at BYU in Provo, where he met Lois Ensign (CCH/BYUH faculty member from 1955-88). She had earned her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and was teaching at the Y.
She told him she was going to work her way around the world teaching, with Hawaii as the first stop. "I'd always been interested in Hawaiian music . . . and as a former Air Force officer I took the opportunity to spend the summer of 1947 in Hawaii. We said it would be interesting if we see each other over there."
"We dated a lot that summer, but I had to go back to school in Provo, because I had one more year to go. We wrote everyday, and I proposed to her at Christmas time in the mail. We were married in the Hawaiian temple in 1948."
"We both loved Hawaii and had met a lot of the people as we were around Laie. We attended a Hukilau and when the people found out we wanted to be teachers, they said, 'We're going to have a school here in Laie maybe a high school, or maybe a college. Why don't you come back here and teach in it?'"
But first, the couple went on a long honeymoon to the South Pacific, sailing first to Fanning Island on a 57-foot ship. They reached as far as Australia and New Zealand, and spent a year teaching in Samoa, before he decided to use the remainder of his GI Bill to earn a master's degree at the University of Iowa. After that he was hired to teach at BYU Provo.
"When they decided to actually begin the Church College of Hawaii, we both wanted to go teach in it. I was teaching on the fourth floor of the old education building and President Law's office was down on the second floor. He was a teacher there when he was chosen to be president. That's how we happened to get here that quick."
"President Clissold did everything that was necessary in the building of the facilities. He moved houses in from Honolulu and he also hired a company that had just begun to build prefabrication houses. My house was moved in from Honolulu. When I came it was sitting here on barrels and ties. I walked through it one day, and I could see some real possibilities of a nice house. So I told Clissold I'd buy it if it were put together."
"Clissold had also brought in some surplus barracks and had them remodeled for three classrooms, and another was the library a big long building with all the walls taken out and shelves put along the sides. The first time I went in that library there were all these empty shelves. The only books I saw was the Encyclopedia Americana, but we could order anything we wanted."
"With the announcement that the Church was going to build a school, a lot of people wanted to move to Laie, so Clissold had to make some new roads. The town used to end at the temple road. There wasn't much beyond that. I know when we first came I would see people walking along that road, and then they would suddenly turn into the underbrush and disappear. I found out there was a Filipino camp over in there."
"There were still water buffalo in Laie, and it was mostly all farmers. They had lots of taro fields, and the beauty hole was very much in operation. It was very popular as a swimming pool."
As the community grew rapidly, at one point Swapp found himself responsible for naming some of the new streets, coming up with Kulanui ['big school'], Hale La'a ['holy house' or temple], and Naniloa Loop.
He recalled many of the local families were very happy to have the new college in Laie. "Sister Ivy Apuakehau was an old lady, but she was very supportive of the school and felt it was such an honor for little old Laie to have a college. She loved to used the term 'rare pleasure.' By the way, her grandson, Joseph, is the one who invented the Hawaiian steel guitar."
"Another important person was Clinton Kanahele. He was principal of Laie School and was also in the Oahu Stake presidency. There was also Bishop Po'e Kekauoha, and the Kekauoha sisters wonderful singers who helped in the Hukilau. Also the Au and Lua families all those little girls were beautiful; the Kalilis, Keawemauhili, Hunkin, Logan, Ho'okano, Uale, Fonoimoana and Ta'a families. There were a lot of real fine Hawaiian and Samoan families here."
"When one of the faculty members became bishop of Laie First Ward, he called me to be in charge of the Hukilau program because when I was in BYU Provo I was doing dance stuff up there and was involved with programs. I organized the community and college kids, and I got Christina Nauahi to teach them Hawaiian things and Brother Galea'i to teach Samoan stuff. After the chapel was built, we were using the Hukilau to pay our ward budget, so we kept it going for quite a long time."
"I continued working with the college students. I was never given any responsibility; I just did it because I wanted to do it. The first new one besides the Samoans and Hawaiians who were already here, was a Maori kid from New Zealand. I immediately got him involved, and then two Tongan girls came Kaloline Mataele and Nancy Fine."
"Then I began doing more than just the Hukilau: I started taking kids out to various places in Honolulu that wanted entertainment. I was doing anything to build up the name of Church College. We were brand new, in a little backwash place out here in Laie. Lots of Honolulu people had never been to Laie, so I wanted to get us on the map."
"I took shows into the International Market Place and we did those for quite a long time. Then I organized big shows that I called the Polynesian Panorama and took the first one to the Waikiki Shell. It was very successful and ended up with about 200 dancers. A lot of people came and then we did it again at the Kaiser Dome."
"We got a lot of newspaper notices, and so we got to thinking we need to make more out of the Hukilau maybe. That's the way the PCC eventually grew. We had gotten ourselves involved with Polynesian entertainment and culture, but after all, we were a university, so the Polynesian Institute was organized to make a study of things and not just show entertainment. Brother Jerry Loveland was put in charge of that."
"Let me tell you about the naming of the Polynesian Cultural Center: All the time we were building it, we just called it the 'village' or the 'Polynesian Village.' President Clissold came to me one time and said, 'One of these days I've got to go to Salt Lake and present this to the Brethren. I can't go say it's the Polynesian Village. They've got to have something better than that. Why don't you think of some other names.' And I said I'll think of something.
"But I forgot about it until he called me one afternoon and said, 'I'm on my way to see President McKay. Have you thought of a name?' And I said, Oh no, I haven't even thought about it. He said, 'Well...if you can think of something between now and seven o'clock you have me paged at the airport.' So I started writing down all the possible words that I thought might be used in a name, put them together in various combinations, and I came up with Polynesian Cultural Center. I called and had him paged and he said, 'Oh, I believe they'll accept that.'"
"When he came back, he said, 'I presented that to President McKay and he picked up immediately: 'That's what we'll call it.' And so, to my surprise, I named the Polynesian Cultural Center. It worked out really well. It gives dignity, it can fit with a college activity, and it still has an appeal to tourists."
Asked his thoughts on the university today, Swapp said, "We built the college up from a little old nothing, and it has become something. They could fill it up ten times with more students if they would take them, and it is an important entity. I think whatever anybody can do to continue that progress that it's been making through the years would be a great contribution, no matter in what angle. I don't know what angles, but I'm sure more can be done, and there are a lot of good people who can do it and probably are in the process now of doing things. I think there's a tremendous future there, just out there waiting."
"I love Laie. I've lived here now for 50 years, and it's been a very satisfying life. The town has built up enough that it supplies most of my needs. Laie satisfies me, and I think it satisfies a lot of people. I know a lot of good faculty members that we have lost because they didn't have houses to live in, and they didn't want to continually pay out in rent but they couldn't buy a house, so they moved. Real good people have left for that reason; and if we can have houses and building possibilities available, we can build up the quality of our community by having faculty members moving here permanently, living here, and raising their families."
"Of course we also have students come in, and students begin to love the place. A lot of them stay, and more of them would if Laie wasn't so hard to get a place to live. I think Laie could really build up like that, and I'd like to see it."
"I love the community, and I'm going to die here. I've got a gravesite out there next to my wife that's waiting for me, and one of these times I'll go in it. I don't know how long I'm going to live. I'm 86 now, and every time I go through another year my doctor tells me, 'You've got three years ahead of you.' So maybe I'll come to the 90's. We'll see. I don't worry about dying. I don't worry about passing on. I love Laie."
We anticipate that many people will visit BYU-Hawaii during its golden jubilee celebration. From time to time, we will interview some of these visitors and share their mana'o or thoughts and comments. We also use other sources and encourage former faculty and those associated with the university to submit their own recollections.
Merlin D. Waite
Retired religion professor1968-2002
More than teaching...
Religion professor Merlin D. Waite retired in 2002, after teaching at BYU-Hawaii for over 33 years. He and his wife, Lila, recently returned from serving a full-time mission.
In his early career, Waite, who is originally from Logan, Utah, taught Seminary and public school in Utah and Arizona before earning a master's degree in speech from Utah State. He also served full-time in the Mexican Mission. After returning, he was drafted into the Army, and at the same time set apart to serve in the South German Mission in the evenings among his fellow soldiers. "We baptized 40 in the first three months," he said.
Waite came to Church College of Hawaii in 1968 as a speech communications instructor. He and Lila, and eventually their six children (another died as a child) settled in Hauula, and over the years all of the children attended BYU-Hawaii, including: Laurie Flores ['94, BS, Elementary Education], who teaches at Hauula Elementary ("Her oldest boy is in the MTC right now," Waite said.); Paul ['92, BS, Elementary Education], who teaches at Heeia Elementary; Monty ['97, BSW, Social Work], who is in grad school in Portland OR to become a male nurse; Maria Mahana Nobre ['94, BS, Elementary Education], now teaching at Ke Uka Elementary in Mililani; Delmar [attended '91], a massage therapist at the Manele Bay Hotel on Lanai; and John ['01, BS, Computer Science]. "John and Hiromi [Kochi Waite, a current student] just had their first child.
"Laurie married a Mexican, Paul married a Hawaiian, Monty married a full Filipina, Maria married a Portuguese and is now married to an Uruguayan, Delmar is single, and John has a full-blood Japanese wife. We consider ourselves quite an international family," Waite said.
After their mission the senior Waites are again living in their Hauula home. After all, he served as bishop of Hauula 1st Ward, and many people remember he was a Laie Stake counselor and then more recently served nine years as Laie Stake president. In between, Waite also spent seven years as executive secretary under three presidents in the Hawaii-Honolulu Mission. During that time, he recalls "I was the branch president for everybody in Micronesia who didn't have a branch. I did Temple interviews by letter."
On campus, Waite initially taught speech and then worked for a couple of years on the executive council in a position equivalent to the Dean of Students, which required him to deal with Honor Code violations. "The real joy of being here is the students. They're good, basically," Waite said. "You deal with such a small percentage, in terms of violations. Most of the rebellious recognized that they were out of order."
Asked what changes stick out in his mind from when he first started teaching, Waite replied that even though he is "older than some of these buildings, the classrooms have been greatly upgraded. The air conditioning made it nice for teaching. Many of the new buildings are really a boon. For example, the new student stake center is absolutely grand and marvelous. The Religion Division moved into there, and many of our classes are taught there."
Waite said he especially enjoyed his time in the classroom. "I was asked to be the New Testament specialist, but I also taught Book of Mormon every semester. I enjoy family history as a hobby, and I've also taught that. In fact, the older I get, the more interested I get in Church history," he added, noting he and Lila went on a Church history tour before starting to serve their mission.
Waite estimates he taught thousands of BYU-Hawaii students over the years. "For a number of years I would have 90 students in each class. We used to be in GCB 185." But, he added, he saw his role as more than teaching. "We were dealing with people's strengths, helping people develop testimonies, go on missions and get married in the Temple."
"You learn some choice things about people. For example, years ago I had a girl from Hong Kong whose family didn't want to cross the border at the crossing. She told me they decided to swim across 'and I heard my family scream one by one during the night. The sharks got them. I was the only one that made it.'"
"I'm very grateful that the brethren have been so kind in making this place available for people who would otherwise not be able to get an education," Waite continued, describing BYU-Hawaii as a place of refuge.
"I truly believe that the statement made in the Book of Mormon, that those who would come to America would be brought by the Lord, has special application here. I heard [Elder] Mark E. Peterson [of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] say that once from the pulpit in the Auditorium; and the idea that there are things they will learn here that they will not get anywhere else, that will prepare them for some future time."
(Reprinted from a 2002 BYU-Hawaii What's New article)