UH Hilo Distinguished Alumni and Service Award banquet is February 29

University of Hawaiʻi
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Posted: Feb 8, 2008

The Alumni and Friends Association of the University of Hawaii at Hilo is holding its 2008 Distinguished Alumni and Service Awards banquet on Friday, February 29 at UH Hilo‘s Campus Center Dining Room. The event begins at 5 p.m. with no-host cocktails and a silent auction to raise scholarship funds.

This year‘s Distinguished Alumni Awards recipients are: Hilo High School Principal Robert Dircks; Gay Porter, Hilo branch manager of Business Insurance Services and president of the General Insurance Association of Hilo and the Hilo Rotary Club; and Mr. Hansen Tsang, owner of Mauna Kea Electric and a pioneer in developing renewable energy technology for the Hawaiian Islands.

This year‘s Distinguished Service Award recipients are: Dr. Don Hemmes, professor of biology at UH Hilo and president of the Mycological Society of America; John Farias, a former Big Island member of the UH Board of Regents; George Martin, former Hawaiʻi Division director and international vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU); the late Eddie De Mello, a member of ILWU, a labor organizer and respected lobbyist; and Stanley I. Hara, former state senator and chair of senate Education Committee. Martin, De Mello and Hara played instrumental roles in transforming the UH Hilo campus from a two-year institution to a four-year University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo in 1971.

Tickets are $50 per person and $350 for a table of eight. RSVP deadline is February 19. For more information, call 974-7643 or 974-7501.