HOLUALOA — Thirty years after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during takeoff and Kona lost one of its heroes, Ellison S. Onizuka’s scout master Norman Sakata could have marked the occcasion remembering the astronaut at a number of venues around the island.
He chose a series of old-style buildings in Holualoa for a special reason. While the facility now houses the sixth- and seventh-grade of the Makua Lani Christian Academy, it used to be the public school that Onizuka attended as a child.
A soft-spoken and at times emotional Sakata remembered a man who had regarded him as a role model and kept close contact via letters even after moving to the mainland and beginning his career with NASA.
Onizuka was with the Holualoa Explorer Post 26 from age 14 to 18. Bending over old photographs, the scout master remembered first seeing the uncompromising self-discipline that Onizuka would later apply to aerospace travel.
“Never a wrinkle,” he said, looking at a black and white image of the youth in full scout attire. “He was a person who never accepted second best. Not that he wanted to outdo his peers. He was always trying to better himself.”
Onizuka was a mission specialist aboard the Challenger flight, which was also taking New Hampshire high school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space, boosting the global profile of the widely televised launch.
“I was there to see the lift-off through an invitation from Ellison,” Sakata told the group of 35 students. “I was debating whether I should go or not because my mother was in the hospital. She said, ‘Please go, because Ellison wants you to be there.’ I saw the space shuttle lift off. Only 73 seconds after lift-off, I saw massive smoke and one big flash of light, and everything was coming down in the ocean.”
To give the younger generation a reference point, math and science teacher Jeff Waddell showed a video documenting the Challenger launch, the explosion that took the lives of its seven explorers, the stunned aftermath and the famous words: “Obviously, a major malfunction.”
For those old enough, that day, Jan. 28, 1986, is one that few will forget. Makua Lani parent Mellisa Beatty was in the fourth grade on Oahu. Back then, there were no TVs in classrooms, so the teacher wheeled one in.
“When the shuttle exploded, she was shaking, and everyone was crying,” Beatty remembered.
The height that he did gain, Onizuka mostly credited to those who raised and shaped him. Three decades later, it is still difficult for Sakata to read a passage from one of the astronaut’s last letters: “It is only because of people like you that people like me can grow up in the coffee fields of Kona and fly in a space shuttle.”
After all, real heroes are hard to come by.
“What I take away is not so much a science role model,” said Makua Lani junior Taylor Mabuni. “But more the impact that he had on the community while he was here, even before he went out to do the things he did.”