State and county officials gathered at the state Capitol Thursday to commemorate the late former senator Colleen Hanabusa.
Hanabusa, who served as a state senator between 1999 and 2010 — becoming both the Senate Majority Leader and Senate President during that time — died March 5 at the age of 74.
Scores of Hanabusa’s colleagues attended a memorial service in her honor Thursday, in the Senate chambers where she served.
Four people delivered remarks. The first was current Senate President Ronald Kouchi. He remembered Hanabusa as a kindhearted woman who “cared for the children of Hawai‘i” and “wanted to make sure everyone was fed.”
Multiple speakers, including Kouchi and philanthropist Walter Dods Jr., spoke about Hanabusa’s love of cooking: Kouchi said that, during Hanabusa’s time in D.C. as a representative for Hawai‘i between 2011 and 2015, and again from 2016 to 2019, she would prepare large Hawai‘i-style meals at her home, and invited homesick Hawai‘i interns to share.
Judge Mark J. Bennett described Hanabusa as a “force to be reckoned with,” and one who he could always get along with even when they disagreed.
City and County of Honolulu Managing Director Michael Formby said Hanabusa could be intimidating during meetings, able to cite page and paragraph of enormous documents without any notes, thanks to her apparently photographic memory.
Formby and Bennett also took note of Hanabusa’s deep love for her dogs: Formby said she would never serve her dogs processed dog food, but would either prepare food for them herself or give them burgers from McDonald’s. Bennett said that, when she was hospitalized near the end of her life, the doctors allowed her husband, John, to bring her dogs to her bedside to cheer her up.
Hanabusa’s career outside of the state Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives included nearly 30 years as a labor lawyer, and the chair of the board of directors of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
Hanabusa is survived by her husband John and her dogs Frannie and Pupper.
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