KAILUA-KONA — West Hawaii Today is celebrating a half-century providing the Big Island’s leeward residents an independent editorial voice.
Today, July 31, 2018, is our 50th anniversary.
From our humble early days as a free weekly to today publishing 365 days a year in print and online, we couldn’t be more excited as we look back on five decades of West Hawaii Today history’s in our community while looking forward to the future.
“OPI is proud to recognize WHT on its 50th anniversary of publication,” said Dennis Francis, president of Oahu Publications Inc., parent company of West Hawaii Today and the Tribune-Herald since 2014. “For most newspapers, 50 years is still quite young but the daily contributions to the community in which we serve cannot be measured in years but instead with our impact on local lives. We recognize this awesome responsibility and wish to thank our loyal readers and advertisers for our success.”
While anniversaries are days to reflect, it’s exciting to keep looking down the road, as West Hawaii Today plans to stay anchored in the community.
“It’s been a privilege to lead the editorial team for the two and half years and be part of the WHT ohana,” said Tom Hasslinger, West Hawaii Today managing editor. “The community has been a great supporter of what we do — even when it disagrees with certain coverage. We’re blessed to be able to serve West Hawaii.”
Early days
Hot off the press, West Hawaii Today entered the community on Wednesday, July 31, 1968, a week after the Hawaii Tribune-Herald announced it would cease publication of the Kona Weekly Tribune-Herald. Offices were set up in Kainaliu and Irma Chillingworth was named the paper’s first reporter, providing local news for residents from Kohala to Pahala.
Our first edition, a 32-page tabloid paper with spot color, featured on its cover Mrs. Hester Machado’s garden, a petition by residents to restore operating room access for a local doctor, coverage of Kona’s world-famous Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament and a police officer charged with raping a 19-year-old tourist.
Our second edition welcomed the site preparation for the Keauhou Beach Hotel (currently being demolished) and ground breaking for Honokohau Harbor, as well as the wrap-up article for the billfish tournament.
That mix of hard news and community features would be a preview of the years to come as West Hawaii Today grew alongside its community, ensuring West Hawaii residents had a voice and a newspaper of their own.
We’ve been there through it all with you — good and bad.
From the eruptions of Kilauea and Mauna Loa to other natural disasters like the 2006 earthquake and the 2011 tsunami, West Hawaii Today was there. From the tragedy of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion that claimed the life of Kona’s Ellison Onizuka to West Hawaii gaining a stronger position in county government and holding its officials accountable, West Hawaii Today has documented it all.
Not to mention all the good times, like Kona’s Carolyn Sapp being named Miss America, the growth of the Ironman World Championship and the plethora of community events and people who’ve graced our cover over the years.
“There were so many fascinating stories,” said Kelly Sorenson-Herberth, longtime local news junkie. “These are from the late ’60s, early 70s. Some children found jewelry from a robbery underneath the swings at a grade school. … There was a town meeting and folks wanted the hippies rounded up and put in a corral.”
Good growing pains
And as the community grew, so did we.
Twice we’ve exceeding the confines of our walls, requiring this operation to find new offices or build new digs. We’ve also increased the physical size of the newspaper and its reach.
West Hawaii Today’s first move came in 1977, when the newspaper’s offices were packed up and moved from Kainaliu to the North Kona Shopping Center in the heart of a burgeoning Kailua-Kona. Five years later, we expanded again — increasing office space and adding a press that finally allowed West Hawaii Today to publish its local newspaper in its hometown five days a week.
By 1984, West Hawaii Today added a Sunday edition, bringing local news to our readers six days a week.
“That was my first assignment,” said former West Hawaii Today publisher Rick Asbach, who came over from the Hawaii Tribune-Herald to fill in for then-publisher Paul Nishimuta, who had fallen ill. “I got the charge to have the Sunday paper and that came from Mr. (Don) Reynolds, who was here for a company meeting. And when he told me he wanted me to start a Sunday paper here … I didn’t say no to him, because you don’t ever say no to him.”
What was supposed to be a temporary situation filling in for Nishimuta turned into a quarter-century career with West Hawaii Today, during which Asbach would oversee many changes and the growth of the newspaper.
In those same days, crack reporter Bobby Command had recently come aboard for what would be another lengthy career with West Hawaii Today.
“It was my first job, my first real full-time job. It was right out of college. I graduated and the next day Curtis Lum called me up and asked me if I wanted a job,” recalled Command, an Oahu boy who’d just earned a degree in journalism from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “I dropped everything and I was here in a week. And I’ve never left since.”
From 1983 to 2008, he served as sports editor, city editor and staff writer. Command would fill for the editor when needed.
“I grew up there,” he said. “I definitely learned the news business. It was a good experience because it was a small newspaper and it was a non-union shop so we got to go ahead and do everything – the whole thing from the top to the bottom, from taking pictures to writing, editing and layout.”
Command still has memories that standout from decades of covering stories.
“My proudest moment at the paper was the first time I went out as a sports editor, covered a game, gathered information, wrote the story, took the pictures, developed the pictures, put the story together, laid it out and saw the newspaper the next day,” he said. “How many people get to say they did that whole thing? It was a basketball story — I did the whole thing.”
Hitting 25 years
In 1993, the newspaper celebrated its silver anniversary, opening its current offices, which house a larger press, at the corner of Kaiwi Street and Kuakini Highway.
“We were already a rolling business, had really been growing in the late 1980s, and so the timing was right,” said Asbach, who looks back on the opening as a highlight of his career. “The upper management, our president Frederick Smith, looked to us and saw the growth and said, ‘These folks should have their own building … and it should be in a prominent location.’”
“I’d been been in the business my whole life, starting on the mainland, and to be able to actually be an integral part of putting up a newspaper building was special,” Asbach continued.
Command remembers those days clearly.
He helped pack up the office at the North Kona Shopping Center, providing input on what precisely the staff would need in a brand new building. Command was the first person to mar the new carpeting, resulting in a stringent and swiftly instituted no-open container policy.
“The first thing, the old president came in to look at the new building and he walked in and dropped his cup of coffee on the ground,” Command recalled. “The building was like no more than a month old.”
Adding lucky 7
From those headquarters in Kailua-Kona, West Hawaii Today continued to progress as a six-day community newspaper. The publication did so first by hitting the worldwide web in 1996, expanding our reach to readers around the globe.
And then, eight years later, we increased the size of the paper to broadsheet and became the Big Island’s first daily newspaper, providing West Hawaii residents news every single day of the year.
It was an idea thrown out there during a department head meeting by a new circulation director who saw the potential positive impact the move could have on circulation. The local decision to provide news each day of the week, as well as packaging it in broadsheet format, was supported by then-owner Stephens Media LLC.
Today, under our parent company Oahu Publications Inc., we continue publish not only West Hawaii Today seven days a week at our facility in Kailua-Kona, but we also print the Hawaii Tribune-Herald serving Hilo, in addition to providing online news and breaking news updates throughout the day.
Ken Love, who was a photographer for West Hawaii Today in the late 1990s, looks back fondly on his time at West Hawaii Today.
“For me, the best thing about working for WHT was to be able to meet different groups in the community outside of my own sphere of agriculture. Seeing and meeting so many dedicated to a better lifestyle in Kona,” he said. “I really did like meeting people who I normally wouldn’t have met. That was a really valuable experience for me.”
Command relayed similar sentiment.
“What I liked about the newspaper is you’re always around the action and you’re always able to meet people that you otherwise wouldn’t have as a normal regular citizen,” he said.
Here’s to the next 50 years.
“This anniversary isn’t just a WHT celebration, it’s a community celebration,” Hasslinger said. “Without the support from people up and down West Hawaii, we wouldn’t have made it that long, and we wouldn’t be planning the next 50 years. This milestone belongs to the island.”
Thanks for the time and thanks for the vine……
I wonder if government officials in Hawaii were as useless and corrupt 50 years ago as now?
They have had time to hone their skills…much like WHT and its unbiased reporting.
Well, whattya going to do, they could hardly find pragmatic conservatives on this island. I give them a lot of slack, it’s a tiny operation in a tiny population base, that they put out anything at all is impressive. And they’ve exposed some real garbage too, like those lying council members (who will probably be re-elected anyway), the well outage that was kept quiet, the horrible situation at the bus yards, and so forth. They’re alright, worth a chuckle every now and then. It’s not like I pay them or anything.
They could get some good conservative writers if they paid well. We are out here on the island. I am not sure they want that perspective advanced in their publication.
Not in a Canadian run paper, they trot out George Wills as the national conservative writer. Oh well.
“Socialist Canadian” run paper.
I was here in 66-67 Hickam AFB nothing has change, just different players. D. Inoye was the best at working for Hawaii and bringing home the bacon. The 2 we now have in the senate are as useful for Hawaii as teats on a bull!
They used to give this rag away free?
And then they convinced liberals to pay to read opinions they already believed?
Genius. Charge idiots to hear what they want to hear while staying in their bubble.