WAIMEA — When the Joed McCluskey softball tournament gets underway in a few weeks, softball players participating in the senior softball competition will be greeted by a new flagpole.
Likewise, the high school fast-pitch softball teams that congregate at the Waimea Canyon Park for the Annual Waimea High School Invitational during the Thanksgiving Day weekend will also enjoy having a standard from which Old Glory can fly in the warm Waimea winds.
Work on the site of the new flagpole began Friday as the result of a Waimea High School athlete’s wishes to “give back” to his community.
Erwin Wright, III, a volleyball player for Waimea High School, would have liked to have been alongside his friends at Hanapepe Stadium on Friday afternoon, helping his volleyball teammates dispense plates of beef stew, hot dogs, saimin, and kalua and cabbage. But, instead, Wright was wielding an auger and a shovel, hefting out load after load of sandy soil in front of the visitors dugout at Waimea Canyon Park.
Between shoveling out dirt and breaking the surface dirt with his o‘o digging stick, Wright said his friends had wanted to come.
“But, this is our home game, and one by one, they had to go help and sell food.”
That left Wright with his immediate ohana: dad Erwin Wright, Jr., brother Evan of Cub Scout Pack 203, sisters Rachel, Allyson, and representatives from Boy Scout Troop 230 sponsored by the Kekaha LDS Church to carry on.
Phil Whitmore, Michael Bukoski, and Aaron Wright took their turns, too, shoveling out dirt from the hole, Wright making sure their loads were deposited in a wheelbarrow instead of on the ground alongside the growing hole. Joe Brun, one of the senior softball players for the Kaua‘i Senior Softball league, impatiently jiggled with the radio dial, trying in vain to get a signal for the baseball playoffs. His wife, Tina, representing the Sheraton Kaua‘i, worked a camera to record details of the tight-knit group of people that huddled around the hole that needed to be 45 inches deep, and 21 inches square.
Wright’s project started about a year ago when the Brun family noticed the lack of flagpoles while attending one of the many softball tournaments that take place at the park throughout the year. Tina approached the community service arm of the Sheraton with an idea of erecting a flagpole so the tournaments could have the nation’s colors flying while competition took place. Charldon Thomas, the hotel’s general manager, okayed Tina’s request to help make the flagpole become reality, and from there, a year-long series of fund-raisers spearheaded by Brun began to raise the $900-plus needed to have the flagpole ordered and shipped.
With the help of Mercy Labrador of the Queen Lili‘uokalani Children’s Center, Wright was contacted about the possibility of doing the work of putting up the flagpole as his Eagle Scout project.
“We had to coordinate with the county,” Wright explained. “Mel Nishihara and Didi Morikawa were the key people in the project, deciding where the flagpole would be planted.”
Wright also had to coordinate the scheduling of manpower to help dig the hole, and pour the cement as well as make sure there was enough equipment to get the project completed in time so his family could at least take in the Waimea football game. As the hole grew to a level beyond the comfortable reach of shovels, Evan Wright was playfully placed in the hole as an indication of how deep the hole had grown, but despite his small frame, his small hands couldn’t scoop the loosened soil.
Jerry Louis, driving his J & R Welding and Equipment Rental truck from a day’s work, rolled into the parking lot carrying the stub, a load of gravel, and the re-bar frame created by the Boy Scouts of Troop 230.
“We wanted them to learn welding,” the elder Wright said. “They all had a hand in getting the re-bar frame put together.” Meanwhile, more members of the Wright ohana showed up in orchestration with the arrival of the truck, their van filled with sand needed for the concrete pouring.
As the sun began its descent behind Ni‘ihau, the group set out to set the re-bar frame, mix the concrete, set the anchor, and finish before it got dark, and, hopefully, before the kickoff of the Waimea game.
Finally, a flagpole wouldn’t be complete without flags, so Wright set out trying to get a set of flags which would fly from the newly-installed fixture.
After checking with several sources, Wright said the county would provide both the American and Hawaiian flags because, according to the county charter, the county is responsible for providing the flags that are flown on county property.
At Saturday’s volleyball game in Kapa‘a, the elder Wright said the family was able to make the football game in the second quarter – not the way they had planned it, but they made it. Hopefully, he added, the concrete will set without any problems, and the volleyball player wearing the number 3 will have the honor of raising the pole on Tuesday.
