Charles Kekumano

From dKosopedia

Category: Native Hawaiians

Monsignor Charles Kekumano, was born in Napoopoo near Kona on the Big Island in 1919. He graduated from St. Louis High School in 1937, and attended seminaries in Santa Barbara and Menlo Park, Calif. Kekumano was ordained at Our Lady of Peace Cathedral and elevated to monsignor by Pope John XXIII in 1961, the first native Hawaiian to hold the position.

Kekumano was one of the authors of the "Broken Trust" series of newspaper articles published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1998 that led to an investigation by the Hawai'i state attorney general into the Bishop Estate's operations. The Bishop Estate/Kamehameha Schools is the nation's wealthiest charitable trust.

Kekumano had served as chairman of the board of the Liliuokalani Estate, served in the Duke Kahanamoku Foundation, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, the Hawaiian Civic Club of Honolulu. He has also served on the Honolulu Police Commission, the University of Hawaii Board of Regents and the Aloha United Way board.

According to the Honolulu Magazine':

"He was a man driven by his love for the Hawaiian people and had the ability to work out differences that were seemingly unsolvable," says Ambrose Rosehill, a close friend.

The monsignor's biggest project was to create a one-stop-shop for Hawaiian service agencies, such as Alu Like and the Lili'uokalani Children's Center. Although Kekumano's dream was realized in 1999 when Kulana'oiwi was constructed on Moloka'i, it has yet to be carried out on O'ahu. "As long as I'm around, I'm going to make sure that this happens," says another close friend, Oswald Stender. [1]

Kekumano died in January 1998 at age 78 from cancer.