LAIE, Hawaii – Several thousand alumni and friends of the Latter-day Saint Church-affiliated Polynesian Cultural Center came together from all over the world on September 1-8, 2013, to celebrate the Polynesian Cultural Center’s golden anniversary, and though many of them had not been back for decades, most agreed it felt like coming home.
A bit of PCC historical background:
The foundation of the PCC dates back as far as 1865, when Brigham Young approved a new gathering place for the Latter-day Saints in Hawaii with the purchase of approximately 6,000 acres surrounding this now-beautiful community, extending from the warm Pacific waters offshore to the distant ridges of the Koolau Mountains.
Several other important historical precedents helped set the stage for the Cultural Center, including:
In 1915 President Joseph F. Smith, known as Iosepa to the Hawaiians he first started serving as a missionary in 1854, dedicated the site for what is now the Laie Hawaii Temple.
In 1921 Elder David O. McKay visited the Hawaii Mission’s multi-ethnic elementary school as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and envisioned establishing a school of higher learning in Laie. As head of the Church in 1955, President McKay broke ground for the Church College of Hawaii, which started that same year in temporary facilities and was renamed BYU-Hawaii in 1974.
In his remarks that day, President McKay gave a blessing that said “this college, and the temple, and the town of Laie may become a missionary factor, influencing not thousands, not tens of thousands, but millions of people who will come seeking to know what this town and its significance are.”
As the future BYUH grew, it quickly became apparent the students needed a nearby place to work. In January 1962 President McKay authorized the labor missionaries who were already in Laie working on the second phase of the CCH campus to begin working on a “Polynesian village,” that would be renamed the Polynesian Cultural Center about two months before it opened.
With Church, political and cultural dignitaries as well as the large Te Aroha Nui Maori Company choir from New Zealand behind him on the PCC’s stage, President Hugh B. Brown, First Counselor in the First Presidency, dedicated the Polynesian Cultural Center on a sunny October 12, 1963, afternoon. The set the stage for the thousands of students and community workers, and millions of guests who would come over the next 50 years.
Leading up to the PCC’s golden jubilee celebration:
Based on alumni response to the 30th and 40th anniversary reunions, the steering committee – chaired by PCC Chief Operations Officer Leilua Logoitino Apelu – began work several years ago to plan the 50th anniversary celebration. They knew former Polynesian Cultural Center employees and friends from all over the world would expect a very special event. The committee also quickly determined they wanted the reunion to include two Sundays, and set the eight-day reunion from September 1-8, 2013.
A special website – went online a year in advance, and is still up. It contains news items, schedules, information, thousands of old photos, approximately 40 years of in-house newsletter publications, video clips, alumni recollections and much more; and it is still being updated. Ticket sales soon followed, and the committee reserved the entire PCC on Friday, September 6, 2013, for the exclusive enjoyment of the alumni and friends – featuring, of course, the much anticipated alumni night shows.
To help alumni no longer living near the PCC to learn their songs and dance routines, the committee posted instructional videos on the web site. Also, recognizing that many alumni and PCC friends were not able to come to Laie for the reunion, the Center made arrangements to live-stream as many of the events as possible on the Internet.
The Cultural Center also participated in the 2012 and 2013 Days of ’47 parades in Salt Lake City, Utah, to promote the reunion:
As the first day of the reunion drew nearer, alumni began to return to Laie from China, Australia, Europe, all over the U.S. mainland and the South Pacific islands including some of the surviving members of Te Aroha Nui Maori Company – a group of 144 New Zealand Maori, many of them former labor missionaries who built the New Zealand Temple and Church College of New Zealand in Hamilton. They came to Laie at their own expense in August 1963, several weeks before the PCC opened, to help prepare the attraction and star in the opening night show 50 years ago.
In accordance with Maori custom, surviving members of Te Aroha Nui Maori Company, family, friends and other visiting groups, wait at the gate for PCC Maori villagers and community members to ceremonially invite them in. They came to Laie early to participate in the PCC’s annual Maori arts festival on Aug. 31 and remain for the 50th anniversary.
PCC and community Maori welcome the visitors in a special powhiri ceremony that includes speeches and songs by the welcoming party (on the left) as well as the same in turn, plus gifts, by the visitors (on the right), and culminates with everyone participating in a hongi – the traditional pressing of noses.
Day 1, Sunday, September 1:
The official Polynesian Cultural Center 50th anniversary event began with a musical fireside program in the BYU-Hawaii Cannon Activities Center, featuring Hawaiian, Chinese, Tahitian, Filipino, Fijian, Samoan, Korean, Maori, Japanese and Tongan choirs as well as the Koolauloa Children’s Chorus, all dressed in the costumes and clothes of their respective heritages.
In his opening remarks, anniversary chairman Apelu welcomed all returning alumni home. “We are all gathered here this week for one reason, to express our gratitude and appreciation to the Lord for the Polynesian Cultural Center,” he said, “and the positive impact and the profound influence it has on each one of us and our families.
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“Wherever we served or worked at the PCC, we as alumni have also impacted the lives of more than 37 million guests who have visited the sacred grounds of PCC since its opening in 1963.”
In introducing the Tongan choir’s number, PCC alumna Lupe Funaki Piena said, “It seems to me it was not an accident that a prophet of God chose this place, Laie, as the gathering place for his international learning laboratory. This also suggests that God has a soft place in His heart for the people of the land, that He would have the confidence to bring people together from all over the world to learn how to live and to teach others the art of living together in peace and harmony. To our brothers and sisters from Hawaii, we say mahalo [thanks] for sharing your homeland with all of us to be a part of building God’s Kingdom internationally.”
Day 2, September 2, 2013:
The historical, cultural and fun parts of the PCC’s 50th anniversary reunion began in earnest, with presentations in the newly renovated Hawaiian Journey Theater on the early beginnings and prophetic nature of the Polynesian Cultural Center. Welcoming activities followed in each of the Center’s villages that, of course, included familiar Polynesian food, and in the case of the Maori Village, involved another powhiri ceremony, this one for the returning alumni, but with the previously welcomed Te Aroha Nui Maori Company people now proudly standing again with the village they helped open 50 years earlier.
But it was the welcoming reception that evening in the Hawaiian Village that provided hundreds of alumni with their first real opportunity to greet, hug, kiss, eat together, laugh a lot, and as we say in Hawaii, just “talk story” with each other. Also island style, some of the entertainment included impromptu talent by the alumni – hula, music, comedy, and more – all under a starry sky with pleasant trade winds.
Other day-two activities included a special islands craft fair that repeated throughout the week, and a free concert series each afternoon in the Front Entrance Courtyard featuring island musicians and hula groups.
Day 3, September 3, 2013:
The third day of the PCC 50th anniversary featured early-morning sessions in the Laie Hawaii Temple, and then a tribute to the labor missionaries – many of them from the South Pacific – and more recent senior service missionaries who so generously donated their time and talents to help and continue to help build up the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Also on this day the PCC/BYUH Alumni Brass Band, which originally performed in the 1970s-90s, marched through the villages again and played several of their old favorite numbers – something they hadn’t done since 1995.
Other day-three activities included a golf tournament at the nearby Turtle Bay Resort, a special presentation honoring Elder Matthew Cowley – the well-known “Apostle to the Pacific” who almost 20 years before the Center began envisioned building “little villages” in Laie, plus mini-reunions in each of the respective PCC villages and several other departments, and alumni show rehearsals.
Day 4, September 4, 2013:
The fourth day of the PCC’s 50th anniversary celebration began early, 6:30 a.m., with a fun-run/walk around the perimeter road circling the Center. Then at 7:00 a.m., hundreds of current employees and some of the heartier alumni and service missionaries joined in the PCC sports festival, with emphasis on lots of activity and fun.
Each team, many dressed in distinctive tee shirts, marched around the BYU-Hawaii soccer field to start the event, then warmed up with lively zumba. Following a team cheer contest, the games began – including a coconut relay, volleyball and dodge ball, a mu’umu’u relay, coconut croquet, and other imaginative physical activities.
The day ended in the BYUH Cannon Activities Center that evening, starting with a special tribute to various PCC “living treasures,” followed by an awesome alumni and current employees talent show. Remember, Polynesian Cultural Center performers are known around their world for their talents; now we know those talents extend far beyond doing island songs and dances.
For example, we enjoyed hula and island music, of course, but also among others a Navajo hoop dance with 22 hoops, a Fijian comedian, a Hawaiian cowboy singing his own comic creation, an outa’-sight Samoan “love boat” fashion parade, a little Bollywood and lots of creative group numbers by management and the PCC Officer Team.
Day 5, September 5, 2013:
Thursday’s activities again included early-morning sessions at the Laie Hawaii Temple and the first session of the Mormon Pacific Historical Society’s annual conference, which this year focused on the Polynesian Cultural Center. In his presentation, Dr. Ishmael Stagner II, a member of the CCH Polynesian Panorama performing group which pre-dated the PCC, demonstrated how Hawaiian Latter-day Saints living in Laie for the century before the Center started helped preserve and showcase their cultural heritage, laying a strong foundation for the PCC.
The Golden Jubilee Ball was the day’s main activity, which took place in the Center’s Gateway venue. The Gateway is normally the home of the PCC’s buffet dinner and Ambassador Fine Dining Restaurant, but all the fixtures were removed to create a gigantic dance floor where alumni and guests demonstrated lively moves and enjoyed a continuous buffet of heavy p?p? as we say in Hawaii – munchies and hors doeuvres – on the Terrace.
In addition to dancing to live music, the ball was also a great time for alumni to get together again and enjoy each other’s company after so many years.
Day 6, September 6, 2013: On the morning of the sixth day, quite a few alumni and friends met on Hukilau Beach, where the Laie Community Association put on a traditional Hawaiian group fishing hukilau, with many hands helping to pull [huki] the nets.This is the same spot where Latter-day Saint residents of Laie put on their famous hukilau, luau and Polynesian entertainment event from 1948-70 that helped prove the viability of the Polynesian Cultural Center concept.
Otherwise, if PCC alumni could only come to the 50th anniversary celebration for one day, this was it: The Center was sold out to its own alumni, who enjoyed an afternoon in the villages, ate a luau dinner, and then the highlights – attended one, or for a lucky few, both of the alumni night shows.
For this reunion, because of the large number of alumni who wanted to perform on the PCC stage again, the steering committee divided the shows into two groups: “Gold” alumni were those who originally danced in the PCC night shows from 1963-1987, while “silver” show participants had originally danced starting from 1988 to the present.
Many had been practicing, with the help of online instructional videos, for months to learn their numbers. Then, for the past week, they met together in their respective cultural “sections” to adjust the choreography and technical aspects of the performance. The excitement backstage rose as 6:00 p.m. drew near – and the beginning of the long-awaited Gold Alumni Show.
It’s impossible to do justice with still images to the energy, color and just how well the two alumni shows turned out; but the following few samples share some of the enjoyment we all felt this evening.
The “gold” alumni show:
The “silver” alumni show:
Originally scheduled for about 90 minutes, the “gold” alumni held the stage for a little over two hours, while the “silver” show crowd waited patiently. It’s hard to hurry 50 years of pent-up talent.
Soon enough, however, the younger, more lively “silver” alumni came charging out of the “volcano” tunnels onto the PCC’s famed Pacific Theater stage. Their moment was at hand.
The “silver” show started with a bit of a surprise – Alfred Grace, the first PCC president & CEO to work at the Center as a student, including a stint as a night show dancer back in the 80s – came out in a bright-white outfit, set off by a red carnation lei, to lip-synch This is Polynesia, the signature song of one of the Polynesian Cultural Center’s long-running night shows. The home-town audience, so to speak, loved it.
Also later in the “silver” alumni show, Grace’s wife, Valerie Enos Grace, a former PCC night show dancer, joined the Samoan section to the audience’s delight.
Day 7, September 7, 2013:
The morning of day-seven dawned with off-and-on-again rain, interspersed with bursts of bright sunlight; even so, the PCC’s 50th anniversary community parade was still on.
People lined the streets, some with umbrellas, while the marchers and other units kept coming.
There was a little bit of everything in this Laie-style parade: dignitaries, marching bands, horse units, floats, free candy, Latter-day Saint wards, labor missionaries, and so forth. One local electrical contractor even featured a piglet being roasted over live coals on the back of his truck: In typical Polynesian style, they presented the well-done piglet to Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve, who was sitting in the VIP viewing stand at the end of the parade.
That afternoon, the Mormon Pacific Historical Society continued its annual conference, focusing on the Cultural Center; and other PCC anniversary activities this day included an evening social for PCC alumni and BYU-Hawaii students, as well as a special performance of the Center’s current night show, H?: Breath of Life for the alumni.
Day 8, September 8, 2013:
The second Sunday of the PCC’s 50th anniversary celebration included several Church-related activities: A CES Broadcast in the BYUH Cannon Activities Center, and Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Twelve dedicating the new Heber J.Grant multi-use building on campus, that includes classrooms and the BYUH YSA Stake Center.
Later that afternoon, the PCC alumni and friends still in Laie, as well as community residents, congregated once again in the Cannon Activities Center to conclude the wonderful eight-day celebration with a special program and testimony meeting.
Of those testifying, most spoke of the feeling of coming home to the Polynesian Cultural Center. Some said the PCC was the best job they’ve ever had, while others told of meeting their future spouses on the job.
Sione Feinga, one of the labor missionaries who helped build the PCC, recalled they were each paid $10 a month back then, and considered it a “great honor” to be part of the work.
Oliana Tapusoa Taut?, an original Samoan villager whose father and mother also worked there, Mauga and Fa’ane’e Tapusoa, called the PCC “my second family.” Indeed, fourth-generation members of the Tapusoa family have or are currently working at the Center.
Sophia Turaga, one of a tiny number of Polynesians from the small island of Rotuma, which is a political dependency of Fiji, came to Laie in 1965 and said the Center is where “we learned to serve and love each other, and that it was “not a sacrifice.”
Sisi Muti said she and her sister alumnae cried as they came through the night show tunnel again onto the PCC stage for the alumni show; and on a more practical note, delighted the audience when she recalled she first learned how to “walk in high heels” and “eat with a knife and fork” when she came to Laie 50 years ago.
In his concluding remarks, PCC President & CEO Alfred Grace thanked Apelu and the other members of the 50th anniversary steering committee for a wonderful job. Then he said, “I know that we all look back on this place with love, great gratitude and fondness, because in our lives, many of the most important things we have done happened in this place.
“For many of us, we gained an education here. We also fell in love. We married in the House of the Lord. We gave birth to our first children. I can’t tell you how many people have come back and said, My first child was born here.’ These are lifetime memories that will continue to make this place sacred for us.”
President Grace also encouraged all alumni to make sure “we do our part to ensure that those who come after us at the Cultural Center will continue to receive and enjoy the same blessings.
“Know that we love and appreciate every one of you, and know that you will always be welcome here.”
– Mike Foley is a former 1960s student employee and Polynesian Cultural Center senior manager
Janice Morgan September 30, 2013
Great article, Mike! I'm so glad I was there to be a small part of the celebration!
Mike FoleySeptember 30, 2013
James P. Atoa, a PCC alumnus, took the picture of the Center's float in the 2013 Days of '47 Parade.