Preserving Koloa’s sugar heritage

KOLOA – Ricky Castillo has wanted to clean the bronze sculpture fronting Koloa town for two years.

This year, Frank Bonilla who will be the grand marshall in Saturday’s Koloa Plantation Days parade, provided the motivating push for Castillo and a group of Kaua‘i Island Tours’ bus drivers, Joe Abreu and Joe Medina, to roll out the power washers and spend their Saturday morning cleaning the sculpture in preparation for the parade.

“We’ve always wanted to do this,” Castillo explained. “But we didn’t know how to go about it.

This year, we went to David Chang who explained that the doctor had purchased the property the sculpture sits on, so we had to get permission from the doctor so we could use the water.” “I always stop my tours here and talk about the history behind this sculpture,” Castillo said of his Kaua‘i Island Tours’ duty.

“The people are always impressed, and many of them didn’t even know this piece was here.” The sculpture sits at the entrance to Koloa town from the Maluhia Road side, and, for those who take the time to explore, fronts the historic stack of the first sugar mill on Kaua‘i.

In line with paying tribute to the many races that make up the town, a rainbow shower tree (cassia javanica x cassia fistula) is currently in full bloom, the tradewinds sending a cascade of colorful petals to the ground. The tree was planted in 1985 and symbolizes the one millionth tree in “A Million Trees of Aloha” program that celebrated the centennial of the arrival of Japanese contract workers to the sugar plantations. Following the Saturday labor of love, Castillo explained that Chang will arrange to have the monument painted to beautify some of the wear that shows since it was put up.

Bonilla is related to Castillo, and says that his part in the construction of the sculpture included assisting the artist from O‘ahu by getting all the supplies as well as serving as the Kaua‘i liason.