Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox features engaging, akamai, one-on-one conversations with some of the most intriguing people in Hawaii.Leslie brings out personal stories revealing experiences and values molding the people who shape our community.Long Story Short is a production of PBS Hawaii.Visit our website at www.pbshawaii.org.

In part two of her interview with the Hawaiian language scholar, Leslie Wilcox talks with Puakea Nogelmeier about this thirty years of work perpetuating an appreciation of the richness and intricacies of the Hawaiian language and culture. They also discuss the herculean task of translating into English the 500 page “Epic Tale of Hi’iakaopoliopele,” and Puakea’s collaboration with others to translate into English many 19th and 20th century Hawaiian newspaper articles and put them online. Puakea also explains the true meaning of the word kaona (it’s not what most people think), and what it’s like to be the voice of The Bus.

 

 Puakea Nogelmeier on the Hawaiian Language [26:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

Leslie Wilcox talks story with Layla Dedrick, Pacific Business News’ 2009 Young Business Leader of the Year. Layla is C.E.O. of  Bella Pietra, a natural stone company, and she runs her business on values that are part of her Hawaiian heritage: Kuleana (responsibility), Malama (caring for), and Kupono (doing the right thing in the right place). She talks with Leslie about her journey from her childhood in Waianae, to attending Kamehameha Schools, to teaching special needs children, to running a highly successful business with her husband.

 

 Long Story Short - Layla Dedrick - Young Business Leader [27:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

DeSoto Brown is a lifetime collector and Hawaiian historian who has the perfect job for someone with a passion for preserving the past: he is the Collections Manager at the Bishop Museum Archives. Descended from famous 19th century Hawaiian historian and writer John Papa I’i, DeSoto surrounds himself with personal and political possessions from Hawaiian Ali’i, as well as stacks of other materials representing Hawaii’s cultural and natural history.

DeSoto tells Leslie about starting to collect pieces of the past at the tender age of seven and how his passion has grown ever since. Lines are blurred between DeSoto’s professional and personal life, because collecting the past is what he loves the most – on and off the job.

 

 Long Story Short - DeSoto Brown - A Passion for Hawaiian History [26:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii

Leslie Wilcox talks story with Corbett Kalama, Executive Vice President and Region Manager at the Oahu Office of First Hawaiian Bank and Bishop Estate Trustee. Corbett comes from humble beginnings – he grew up in a 900-square-foot house in Kailua with a family of 13 – but his road to success was not the typical dog-eat-dog climb up the corporate ladder. It was, instead, formed by his family’s Hawaiian values of family, education, and community.

 

 Long Story Short - Corbett Kalama - A Community Leader from Humble Beginnings [26:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox  is a production of PBS Hawaii.

In his more than fifty year career, William S. Merwin has received nearly every major award for poetry, including two Pulitzer prizes. He has traveled widely and lived in Europe, but since the late seventies Haiku, Maui has been his home. It is also where he found an affinity for native Hawaiian culture and where he crafted a mythical, Hawaiian narrative. He talks to Leslie about how his love for words began as a child, when his mother would read to him. He also reads from some of his poetry collections.

 

 Long Story Short - W.S. Merwin - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet [26:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

Leslie Wilcox visits with Mary Bitterman, who was the Executive Director of PBS Hawaii (then referred to as KHET) from 1974 to 1979. The youngest Executive Director of a PBS station at the time, she headed KHET at the time of the groundbreaking production of Aldyth Morris’ “Damien”, which won the George Foster Peabody Award and was aired on PBS stations nationwide. She went on to become the President and CEO of KQED – the PBS television station in San Francisco – and was board chair of PBS. Mary is now Chair of the PBS Foundation and head of the Bernard Osher Foundation, which provides scholarship funding to selected colleges and universities.

 

 Long Story Short - Mary Bitterman - Leading PBS in Hawaii and Beyond [26:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

A year out of high school, Marvin Nogelmeier arrived in Hawaii on his way to Japan and stayed on a whim. Whether by happenstance or destiny, over thirty years later he has become Puakea Nogelmeier, Hoku-award winning songwriter, Kumu Hula, and Associate Professor of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaii. He tells Leslie about some of the choices he made, how they led to a career advocating and promoting the Hawaiian language, and how he got his name.

 

 Long Story Short - Puakea Nogelmeier - Advocating and Promoting the Hawaiian Language [27:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

Like many Hansen’s disease patients at Kalaupapa, Meli Watanuki experienced loss from a very early age. Diagnosed with Hansen’s disease at eighteen, she was abandoned by her husband who took their young son with him. Years later, their bond could not be reconnected. Yet she explains how she found happiness and a new love by choosing to live in Kalaupapa. She and fellow Hansen’s disease patient Boogie Kahilihiwa voice their contrasting views on whether or not children should be allowed into Kalaupapa. This is the third in a series of Long Story Short shows shot on location at Kalaupapa on Moloka’i.

 

 Long Story Short - Meli Watanuki - On Location at Kalaupapa [26:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

Hansen’s disease patient Clarence “Boogie” Kahilihiwa decided to move to Kalaupapa after patients were no longer forced to live there. Today, there are fewer than twenty Hansen’s disease patients living in Kalaupapa, but he remembers when there were more than five hundred patients on the peninsula. He talks to Leslie about living there and his effort to establish a monument listing the names of all who were sent to Kalaupapa. This is the second in a series of Long Story Short shows shot on location at Kalaupapa on Moloka’i.

 

 Long Story Short - Clarence "Boogie" Kahilihiwa - On Location at Kalaupapa [26:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.

Hansen’s disease patient Norbert Palea of Kalaupapa was only five years old when he was sent there, without even being officially diagnosed with the disease. In spite of that sentence and its hardships, he endured, with no regret. He tells Leslie, “Even if they sent us here… look around. They gave us the most beautiful home in the world.” This is the first in a series of Long Story Short shows shot on location at Kalaupapa on Moloka’i.

 

 Long Story Short - Norbert Palea - On Location at Kalaupapa [26:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox is a production of PBS Hawaii.