<Begin Segment 19>

BN: And then how does the National Park Service come into picture?

JK: I guess through Frank Hayes.

BN: Frank is like the regional, in charge of the Hawaii...

JK: Yeah, in charge of Hawaii and Guam.

BN: For the National Park Service?

JK: Yeah, for the National. And then, of course, because Jeff and Mary, they were a big key in all of this.

BN: They worked for the NPS?

JK: Yes. And they knew the steps that we had, too. So they said, "Well, you've got to get on that National Register of Historic Places, and you got to do this, you got to do that. And then in the meantime, Gerald Hamada's coming through with the JACS grant. And that's when you came on board, and we could take advantage of using the JACS grant.

BN: All of a sudden you have some money.

JK: Yeah. Because up 'til then, we had no money. Even the Resource Center didn't have money.

BN: What were some of the key steps in terms of getting it to the point where it could be transferred to the NPS? Because now you've got a sympathetic landowner, Monsanto, you've got the archaeologists doing some work, JCCH is doing those educational community involvement stuff. But there were some hurdles getting it to the National Park Service.

JK: And Monsanto definitely had the biggest hurdle initially, which was that site, they were concerned about liability. And so they asked JCCH to take care of that. Of course, it was much too small an organization. And so then we went to Trust for Public Lands, and they were willing to temporarily hold it, but we had to have a Plan B in case it fell through. And you were working with Dan Sakura, and they were willing to kind of hold them. And while we were doing all this jockeying, all of a sudden, Fred Perlak of Monsanto says, "Let's go for the gold. Even if we don't get it, we might get bronze." And Monsanto donates the whole thing. And then the issue is, of course, subdividing the money for that, and Monsanto came up with that as well. And so I think that was one of the big hurdles.

Do you want to hear... I'm not sure about this story because it's hearsay, but it's hearsay from Monsanto people. But Fred had a mother, and apparently he told her about what was going on. And Mother Perlak told him, "Get it done," and that's what Alan Takemoto told me. And so that was when he figured out a way for Monsanto to donate the whole thing. Up 'til then it wasn't there at all, yeah. And so that's why I keep saying that there were these things that happened along the way that just convinced me that it was the right thing to do.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.