Pacific University group leaving Hawaii

Title

Pacific University group leaving Hawaii

Description

A group from Pacific University at the Honolulu airport, about to travel home from Hawaii to Oregon in May 1959. The original slide is slightly blurry. Based on an article that appeared in the Pacific University Index (May 18, 1959, p. 2), the students in this group were attending a speech tournament on Oahu. "Bedecked with leis and smiling happily were the four representatives to the University of Hawaii Invitational speech tourney who returned to campus this morning at 5 a.m. carrying six trophies."

This trip was also the first intentional recruitment event in Hawai'i by a staff member of Pacific University. According to the Pacific University Index (May 4, 1959, p. 3), Professor Fred Scheller, the group's speech coach, was planning "to speak at several high schools in an effort to recruit Hawaiian students, and will appear before ministerial and Pilgrim Fellowship groups." Hawaii became a state about three months after this photograph was taken in 1959. Scheller went on to become one of the founders of Pacific's Hawaii Club, Na Haumana O Hawai'i, which was organized that fall with twenty members who were from the state of Hawaii. A group that appears to have included the same people are in another photograph from 1959 (see PUApic_010595). Students from Hawaii would eventually make up a significant percentage of Pacific's student body.

Group members named in the article included the students: Larry DePolo (Class of 1962; the man without glasses, right); Deanne Dayton (Class of 1961, the woman wearing a lei); and Steve Hanson (Class of 1962; the man with glasses, left). The fourth student in the group, John Randlett (Class of 1962), does not appear to be in the photograph; he may have been holding the camera. The students were accompanied by Professor Fred Scheller (the man with glasses, right). These names match a handwritten caption on the original slide, which appears to have come from the offices of Fred Scheller. It reads: "Leaving Hawaii - the [K---?], Deanne, Larry, Steve."

Hanson, Dayton, DePolo and Scheller are wearing leis that were likely given to them by friends on Oahu. Hanson and Dayton are carrying Northwest Airlines bags. The women who are not wearing leis were probably seeing off the group as they left the island. The May 18, 1959 article noted above states: "They also visited the parents of several Hawaiian students attending Pacific and Sam Luna, Pacific graduate and husband of Madean Luna, Pacific senior, drove the students and Mr. Scheller to the airport and saw them off when they left this morning." The women in the photograph may be from the Luna family.

Identifier

PUA_PeoSlides_002

Date

1959

Date Created

May 1959

Subject

Student Activities

Pacific University

Spatial Coverage

Honolulu, Hawaii

Format

Slide

Source

Pacific University Archives