KAILUA-KONA — It took more than 30 years, but Moana Kuma will finally assume her place on the throne. ADVERTISING KAILUA-KONA — It took more than 30 years, but Moana Kuma will finally assume her place on the throne. Kuma
KAILUA-KONA — It took more than 30 years, but Moana Kuma will finally assume her place on the throne.
Kuma — who has served as a princess and a narrator, worked on floats and arranged entertainment — will serve as the Pa’u Queen in Kona’s 100th Anniversary King Kamehameha Day Celebration Parade on Saturday.
“The Pa’u Queen embodies the spirit of the parade itself. She is the adornment of the parade, a combination of skill, grace and beauty all in one,” Kuma said. “We honor the unifier of the Hawaiian Islands. We take our culture and our history, our language and our religion quite seriously. Anything that has to do with honoring our nobility is very important to me.”
Barbara Nobriga, chairperson for the parade committee, said the primary factors considered when crowning a queen are community contributions and ancestral roots.
Kuma’s daughter, Ulu Ching, said with those qualifications in mind, the parade committee couldn’t have made a more fitting choice.
Kuma, 56, was born in Honolulu but raised in Kona since the third grade. Her great grandparents established themselves as one of the first major ranching families on Hawaii Island.
Beyond her lineage, Kuma spent more than 15 years of her life educating Kona youth as a member of the Department of Education and also spent several years working in the visitor industry. When she wasn’t working, she was donating time and effort to organizations like the Hawaii Island Food Bank and the Hawaii Humane Society.
“I think my mom embodies the spirit of Kona, which is one of aloha,” said Ching, who now lives in Hilo. “Kona is in her blood. She was raised all her life there. Kona is a part of her, and she is a part of Kona.”
Kuma’s ride through the heart of the town she so dearly loves and respects was in doubt only a few months ago after she was floored by an unexpected diagnosis of lung cancer. But following four rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, the cancer has receded into remission.
“They caught it early on, but I was dumbfounded” she said. “I talked to my doctors and asked if I could still participate in the parade as the Queen. They said, ‘Absolutely.’ I’m elated and am looking forward to Saturday. I have the love and support of a large family.”
Kuma’s family was a collective motivation in her fight, but Ching said the honor and opportunity of representing her culture and heritage on horseback spurred her mother’s tenacity as much as any other factor as she engaged in a bitter and painful feud with cancer.
Although she still moves about somewhat gingerly, Kuma is confident in her ability to carry out her royal duties.
“It’s incredible,” said Karen Anderson, public relations chairperson for the parade committee. “That she’ll be riding is going to inspire a lot of people.”
Many of those people will be Kuma’s very own family members, the majority of whom will join her as part of her processional unit. Her six children will ride behind her in an equestrian group. Her 10 grandchildren, representing the fifth generation of family parade participants, will follow to clean up after the horse.
Ching’s 5-year-old daughter Kilolani wasn’t thrilled about the prospect and wanted to know why she didn’t get to ride a horse like mom and grandma.
“I told her all Pa’u Princesses have to start somewhere,” Ching laughed. “We’ve all ridden in different parades, so Pa’u riding and this parade are becoming a little bit more of my mom’s legacy — passing on that tradition from her kupuna down to her children and mo’opuna.”
Because it is the centennial celebration, Kuma wanted to honor Kona history in a special way. Her idea was a parade within a parade, and so she added a vehicle unit to make room for old friends, former queens and those carrying old Kona family names like Kamaka, Debina and Atkinson.
“I’m honored to be a part of the Queen’s unit this year, riding for the centennial, and just paying homage to the art of Pa’u riding,” said Keoni Atkinson. “It’s like taking a little bit of the past and bringing it into the present.”
Coordinating the logistics of roughly 30 participants across equestrian, vehicle and walking units while fashioning all the colorful, cultural trappings they’ll wear required a great deal of work, especially while battling cancer. But Kuma was more than happy to accept the challenge.
The honor of Pa’u Queen is one she’s been excited about for most of her life.
“My mom is a fighter. A lot of people might have said, ‘You’re sick. You shouldn’t be doing this. You should think of yourself and take care of yourself,’” Ching said with a quiver in her voice. “Or some people might have said, ‘You’re so selfish. You’re obviously sick. You can’t do this.’ But she can do this. She is bigger than cancer, and those are the kind of people we raise in Kona.”
