Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 6, 1 June 2012 — A paddling matriarch in Leeward Oʻahu [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A paddling matriarch in Leeward Oʻahu

By Kekoa Enomoto Leeward Kai Canoe Club president Edith "Edie" Van Gieson has steered outrigger eanoe paddling for nearly a half-century on the 0'ahu's Leeward Coast as well as statewide and internationally. For her volunteer leadership, Van Gieson, 76, was honored recently by the state Legislature. "The children of Wai'anae and Nānākuli have been growing and getting to learn the culture," Van Gieson said about the 130 keiki paddlers in the eanoe club she cofounded with her late husband, Henry Van Gieson, in 1967. You ean eall it an 'ohana affair. About a dozen of the Van Gieson's grandchildren and great-grand-children paddle with the club, as does their daughter, Rena Rzonca, the club registrar. Son Myron, now out of the circuit, is a former men's eoaeh, while son Ryan serves as head eoaeh and women's eoaeh. Other helping hands include Mel Pu'u as men's eoaeh and Daven Ka'aihue as lead keiki eoaeh. Edie Van Gieson is the treasurer of Nā 'Ōpio Canoe Racing Association, or NOCRA, whieh serves about a hundred youths

in grades 3 to 12 every year. She heads communications from shore to officials' boats at regattas held by the O'ahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association, NOCRA and the O'ahu Interscholastic Association. "I manage the (race) course, so it's fun," said Gieson, who attended Nānākuli's Nānāikapono Elementary School with her future husband, graduatedin 1953 from Kamehameha Schools and earned a nursing degree at the University of Hawai'i-Mānoa. Van Gieson said she also officiated at World Sprints twice in New Zealand; worked at the first 30 Moloka'i Hoe 40-mile Moloka'i-to-0'ahu eanoe race for men, from 1952 through 1981, including officiating since 1955; and officiated at the Nā Wāhine O Ke Kai Moloka'i-to-0'ahu race for women, fromits inception in 1979 through 2008. A pioneering cadre organized Nā Wāhine O Ke Kai. "For all the planning, a group of us women from OHCRA worked together and the women's race became as successful as the men's," she said, naming other women involved, like Moku Froiseth, Joannie Malama, Joannie Ka'aua andMary Serrao.

Former 14-year OHCRA president Joan Malama, 80, called Van Gieson an "exemplary" race official and association "money expert," who originated the Blue Hawaiian Moonlight concerts to raise funds for officials' escort boats. "She's one of the ones I counted on," Malama said. This month, Leeward Kai Canoe Club will host the annual Father's Day OHCRA regatta June 17 at Nānākuli Beach Park. The event will feature sales of T-shirts, shave iee and other snacks, and a tradihonal scattering of flowers at sea for all fathers, "especially for my husband," said Van Gieson, who noted the day would have been his 77th birthday. And what would Henry Van Gieson, who died in 1995, have said about the club's nearly halfcentury of service on the Leeward Coast? "I think he'd be happy because we continued to do his work, and we were able to have the city build us a eanoe hālau. We're going on four or five years in a hālau now," she said. "Before that we were just at the beach, just in an old shelter built with this and that." Leeward Kai is "planning to get us a new fiberglass boat" and will host a laulau sale in July. Tickets will be available closer to the fundraiser from club members and at the hālau, where Edie Van Gieson presides from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays. Donors also may send checks made to the nonprofit Leeward Kai Canoe Club, P.O. Box 2172, Wai'anae, HI 96792. For questions, email LeewardKaicc@ hawaii.rr.com. ■

Kekoa Enomolo is a retired copy editor and staff writer with The Maui News andformer Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Sen. Maile Shimabukuro, Rep. Karen Awana, Edith Van Gieson and her grandsons at the state Capitol on March 30, when Van Gieson was honored by the Legislature. - Photo: Pwneine Murray