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Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Who's ready for Trick-or-Treating!?"}]

Smile 26 10 30

<title>Daily Smile: Friday, Oct. 30, 2026</title>

Who's ready for Trick-or-Treating!?

Daily Smile: Friday, Oct. 30, 2026

 Who&#039;s ready for Trick-or-Treating!?

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

June Jones was laughed out of the room. Even his most staunch supporters thought he was crazy. 

The year was 1998. The University of Hawai‘i football team had just gone 0-12. Jones, then the interim head coach of the NFL's San Diego Chargers, was offered the permanent role. He declined. 

Instead, he took a $250,000-a-year job to coach the Rainbow Warriors, sacrificing millions to take over a team that lost more than every other Division I football team in the country in 1998. His vision in taking over wasn't just getting the team back to bowl contention — it was about taking the program to new heights. 

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), which debuted in 1998, was the new frontier for college football's elite. In his first day on the job, Jones said it was just a matter of time until Hawai‘i would get there. 

"All of us thought this man was a little bit eccentric, a little bit crazy," 

, a former player and coach under Jones at UH, told Aloha State Daily. "The press thought he was crazy. The fans thought he was crazy because you're taking a program that has been in the bottom of college football thinking about BCS games and being great."

In less than a decade, Jones' bold claim became reality. Less than a decade after going 0-12, Hawai‘i went a perfect 12-0 during the 2007 regular season, earning a bid to the Sugar Bowl, one of the five BCS bowl games at the time. Though he departed for SMU following the season, Jones left an indelible mark on the Islands. He remains the winningest head coach in Hawai‘i history at 76-41, as well as one of its most beloved. 

After a battle with Stage 4 cancer, Jones died in hospice care in Oregon on Thursday morning. He was 73. 

"It's really the state of Hawai‘i's loss," Miano said on Thursday. "He's a fighter. For 43 years he's been like a dad and like a mentor and somebody I totally looked up to in so many aspects of life. ... I've never seen anybody as a coach or an administrator make such a positive impact and stimulate this state like he did."

Born and raised in Portland, Ore., Jones began his college football playing career as a quarterback at Oregon from 1971 to 1972. He then transferred to the University of Hawai‘i, suiting up for the Rainbows in 1973 and 1974. 

Though he transferred to Portland State for the 1975 and 1976 seasons, it was there that he was first introduced to the run-and-shoot offense by Mouse Davis — a scheme Jones would eventually revolutionize and make his own, using it to much success across his stops at the college and pro levels. 

The first stop in Jones' coaching career brought him back to UH, where he was the team's quarterbacks coach in 1983. From there, he coached quarterbacks and receivers in the USFL, CFL and NFL. His first offensive coordinator job with an NFL team was with the Atlanta Falcons from 1991 to 1993. He was head coach for the Falcons from 1994 to 1996, going 19-29. After getting hired as quarterbacks coach for the Chargers in 1998, he was named interim coach halfway through the season. Then Hawai‘i came calling. After its winless 1998 season, UH went 9-4 in Jones' first year in Mānoa, finishing with a 9-4 mark that culminated with a 23-17 victory over Oregon State at the 1999 Oʻahu Bowl. 

"In terms of taking a struggling program that was literally the worst in college football, then having the biggest turnaround in NCAA history. There's no other person that could convince the players," said Miano, who was hired by Jones as the secondary coach before the 1999 season. "They're basically the same players. There's no other person that could convince coaches."

Jones' impact spans generations. Five of his former players at Hawai‘i are on the coaching staff for the current team, including head coach 

, who set the NCAA passing yardage record at 17,072 under the tutelage of Jones. 

On Thursday, an emotional Chang was in tears and had to collect himself before answering a question about his former coach and mentor. It was also Jones who gave Chang his start in collegiate coaching at SMU as a graduate assistant in 2012. 

"Playing is one thing, but when you're starting a new life, a new chapter, there's only so many doors that open for you," Chang said on Thursday. "June was that door for me. Not only as a player, but also as a coach, helping me and giving me an opportunity. What I get and love to do now, there's so many things that when I get to look back as a player and as a coach, how great he was, and how much that meant to me, a lot of the decisions I make and a lot of the base principles of who we are foundationally as a team come from there. I got to express that and talk about that with the team today, and that's what he is. He's a foundation builder, and I think that's where I really truly appreciate everything that he has done, not just for me, but for the school, the state, and football."

Hawai‘i associate head coach Chris Brown was the first player to sign under Jones in 1999. When it was his turn to speak about Jones on Thursday, he too wiped a stream of tears away before recalling some of the permanent marks his former coach left on the program. The green "H" and tapa trim logo the entire athletics department uses today was inspired by a rebrand spearheaded by Jones in 2000. So was the concept of all-black uniforms. 

"All the lessons and the stuff that he taught us, all we're trying to do is just replicate it in this day and age," Brown said. "It's not easy. You know where college football is these days, but you can never forget the foundation. You can never forget, the base of everything, and that is Hawai‘i — true Hawaiʻi football. Let's go score some points. Let's go play some some rugged defense. Let's put some excitement and fire in the stands, and when you see that black jersey come running, you know it's something that was started from coach Jones, and you I'm very, very proud that this team is still carrying on that legacy."

Hawai‘i offensive line coach Derek Faavi was the center and bridge between the program's two most prolific quarterbacks of all time in Chang and Colt Brennan. He walked on out of Campbell High School in 2001 and became team MVP as a senior in 2005, thanks in large part to the faith Jones put in him. When Jones was present at a 

live demolition event at Aloha Stadium in April

, Faavi approached his former coach and thanked him for all the memories. 

"I said, 'Coach, all of these memories in Aloha Stadium is because of you,'" Faavi said on Thursday. "When you strip all of those layers back and kind of think about everything that I went through with Hawai‘i football, it's because of him. It's a sad day. Sad day for all of us Warriors, and we love him."

Following his 2008-2014 stint at SMU, Jones briefly moved back to the Islands, where he was the offensive coordinator at Kapolei High School in 2016 and athletic director at Saint Louis in 2017. He returned to coaching as the head coach of the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats from 2017 to 2018, then went 5-0 as the head coach for the XFL's Houston Roughnecks in 2020 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic cut the season short. 

Jones made one last run at the Hawai‘i job when it opened in 2022, turning down a two-year offer from then-athletics director David Matlin. Despite his displeasure in the amount of years he was offered, he vowed to be a resource for Chang as he adjusted to the gig. 

"He always loved watching University of Hawai‘i football," Chang said. "He loved watching this team play. He was very complimentary. As the season went on this year, he always talked about how hard the boys played, and he said just keep sticking with it, keep staying with it, it'll come, and he was very encouraging  along the whole way that I've been here, and so I love him, and we'll miss him."

June Jones 102926

<title>Hawai‘i football visionary June Jones passes away at 73</title>

The former UH quarterback and head coach left an indelible mark on the program he spurned the NFL for in 1999.

Hawai‘i football visionary June Jones passes away at 73

De Soto 2025

DeSoto Brown

Hawai‘i History

Columnists

From March to July of 1961, Victoria Ward Ltd. — owner of more than 60 acres in Kaka‘ako — announced a new master plan for its property, along with the first substantial structure that was to be part of this redevelopment.

This plan called for the Ward property along Ala Moana Boulevard from Queen Street to Ward Avenue to eventually be the site of six highrise buildings of seven or more stories, various lowrise buildings of up to four stories, and several parking structures of at least two stories to be randomly intermingled. Mauka of this, extending up to Queen Street would be short office buildings facing Ward Avenue and Kamakee Street and light industrial structures and warehouses filling in the rest.

The new IBM Building at 1240 Ala Moana Boulevard would be the first structure of this master plan, which actually was never fully realized. Although it was named for the main commercial tenant which leased it, the building was developed by Victoria Ward in reality. It stood seven stories tall, including the penthouse which served as an employee lounge. In total there were 61,961 square feet of space and the estimated cost would be $1.5 million ($16.5 million in todayʻs dollars). Victoria Ward would occupy half of the sixth floor while IBM took the first two floors; the company then had 90 employees in Hawai‘i but it’s not known how many of these would be moved into this new home. Parking directly around the building would accommodate 70 vehicles but 250 more could be parked in the near vicinity, which at that time included open land along with used car lots.

One unexpected aspect of the IBM Building’s construction was very much a response to the world’s international situation at the time. In 1961 the United States and the USSR were still engaged in what was called the Cold War; a standoff between the two superpowers which were trying to promote their respective economic and political systems in different countries while competing with, and maneuvering against, each other. This competition saw both nations arming themselves with quantities of nuclear missiles aimed at the other, with the worrying threat of a catastrophic atomic war seemingly always possible. As the IBM Building’s construction was in its early stages in October 1961, it was proposed to add an underground nuclear shelter beneath its parking lot with a capacity of 300 people, but this was soon dropped partly because of the abundant ground water not far below the surface which would complicate the project. Ironically, one year after this would come the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the USA discovered that Russian nuclear missiles had been installed in Cuba. This led to a short but extremely intense period in which the United States imposed a military “quarantine” in the ocean around the island to prevent Russian ships from bringing in more armaments, and the potential for atomic war was frighteningly close. But the USSR backed down, war was averted, and the lack of a large shelter under the IBM Building turned out to not be a problem — fortunately.

The lead architect for the IBM Building was Vladimir Ossipoff, who by this time had established himself as probably Hawaii’s leading modern designer. Ossipoff had been born in Russia but then had moved with his family to Japan as a child, where his father was stationed in the Russian embassy. After the Russian monarchy was overthrown in 1917 the family never returned to their homeland and immigrated to the United States in 1923. Vladimir attended high school and college in California and after graduating with an architectural degree in the early 1930s during the Depression, moved to Hawaii where he was able to get a job. His career had grown steadily since then.

Ossipoff equipped the IBM Building with a remarkable exterior composed of concrete elements that he designed, and which were then manufactured locally before being installed. These formed what’s called a “brise soleil,” a French term for a sunshade, which still serve to reduce the glare of direct sunlight through large windows while also cutting cooling costs. Unique to just this single structure, the visually-striking concrete grille was more economical than one fabricated of metal, costing $3.50 per square foot vs $5 for the metal version. Many years later, Ossipoff’s business partner said the design for this exterior covering had been inspired by the appearance of what had been called “punch cards,” which were paper cards then used by IBM computers to carry information. These were well-known for having random patterns of rectangular holes that had been stamped into them.

In 2002, Victoria Ward Ltd, still a family-owned company, sold its Kaka‘ako property for $250 million to General Growth, which was an American real estate investment firm that specialized in owning and operating shopping centers. Its justification for the Kaka‘ako purchase was to possess and run Ward Warehouse and Ward Centre, the two shopping complexes located on this land. Six years later, in 2008, General Growth announced its own master plan for this land which called for the demolition of the IBM Building and pretty much everything else on the former Ward lands beginning in 2010.

Fans of Ossipoff and his work immediately objected, but many others saw its destruction as no big loss. Three people quoted in a 2008 newspaper article expressed indifference or open disapproval: “I don’t happen to think it’s particularly attractive…it’s not the best use for that location. If it’s going to be an office, you could have a newer, better office building on that site,” said Jamie Brown of Hawai‘i Commercial Real Estate. From Gary Gordon, construction superintendent: “It’s period architecture. Unfortunately, its time has come and gone, and it doesn’t blend in.” And from Francis Oda, chairman and CEO of Group 70 International architects: “It’s an interesting building but [Ossipoff did] better than that…[and] you can’t just have a knee-jerk reaction to preserve everything.” Apparently these three thought that nothing different from the multiple reflective glass towers we see in this location today should be present to interrupt the overall uniformity.

General Growth’s plan was never carried out. The company ran into financial problems and some of its assets were required to be spun off, leading to the 2012 switch in the ownership of the former Ward property to the Howard Hughes Corporation. Fortunately, the latter decided that the IBM Building was worthy of preservation and on February 1, 2013 began a $24 million renovation and revamp of it. The remodeled ground floor would house the publicly accessible scale model of the planned redevelopment of this portion of Kaka‘ako; this has been in place since 2014 and is still there today in 2026. The model has, of course, been changed over this 12-year period since the original target of 22 residential towers has been reduced in number.

We can be grateful that short-sighted dislike of “outdated buildings” which can lead to the loss of structures that could never be replicated today, due to costs or the lack of workmanship expertise to do the work, did not claim the IBM Building more than 15 years ago. It will continue to stand as a physical artifact of what Kaka‘ako once was.

1 IBM 67 16x9

<title>Changing Kaka‘ako: The IBM Building</title>

At one time, the plan for the IBM Building included a basement bomb shelter in case of nuclear war. Later, the building faced destruction from a more ordinary source — changing ownership and redevelopment plans. Fortunately, writes ASD history columnist DeSoto Brown, it has been preserved, even as the neighborhood around it changes drastically.

Changing Kaka‘ako: The IBM Building

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Athletics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have contributed nearly $753 million to the state economy over the last four years, according to a newly released study.

Gov. Josh Green and other state officials unveiled the 

 of the study Thursday, with the governor pointing to the numbers as a reason to continue to invest heavily in UH and UH athletics.

“I’m proud of these teams, I’m proud that they inspire families,” Green said. “I’m grateful that it’s an economic boon, and really what I want us to do going forward is to make informed decisions about how we invest in UH and how we invest in UH sports.”

The report was funded by private donors, one of whom was retired businessman Larry Rodriguez. Rodriguez said Thursday that it was self-evident to him that UH Athletics has a significant impact to the state’s economy, but the exact scope of that impact was not well documented, and so he and other partners put together a study to quantify it.

The study assessed four different areas of economic impact: direct spending associated with athletic events, spending associated with UH athletes or employees of UH’s athletic programs, broader athletic revenue from sources such as sponsorships, and revenues generated by athletic-related construction and improvement projects.

All told, the study found that, since the 2022-2023 academic year, UH Athletics have generated about $752.8 million in economic impact. The average year generates about $187.7 million, although the 2024-2025 year saw an economic impact of more than $200 million.

[{"type":"text","text":"UH Mānoa’s annual athletics budget is approximately $66 million."}]

UH Football brings in the most revenue on game days, about $53 million over the last four years, with men’s basketball a close second at $51 million and men’s volleyball in third at $41 million.

Meanwhile, construction projects at athletic facilities resulted in $24.9 million in UH spending, which generates jobs and income throughout the state.

Furthermore, the study estimated that the exposure of UH Mānoa athletics through national broadcasts and social media is equivalent in value to $1.73 billion in advertising spending.

For example, the study looked at the number of Instagram impressions generated by all UH Athletics profiles in the 2025-2026 school year, approximately 192 million impressions. Based on the study’s calculations — which attributed a $9.17 value per 1,000 impressions — those impressions had an equivalent value to $352 million in advertising.

UH Athletics Director Matt Elliott said the money coming in from athletics represents an opportunity for additional investment, particularly in a highly competitive environment where Hawai‘i needs to retain visibility among college athletic programs the nation over.

“For UH Athletics to be successful and to have a long-term plan, we need to be the top of the conference we’re in,” Elliott said. “Us being in the Mountain West [Conference] is a new investment. It’s a new level of competition, and we need to keep up with the teams that are in that conference so that we can continue to have the success that we have.”

Green added that “the NIL era is upon us,” referring to an ever-increasing number of colleges and athletic programs allowing students to receive compensation for use of their name, image and likeness.

“Big universities are out there investing millions and millions of dollars in some athletes based on their name and likeness, and that, in turn, drives enormous revenue when they get on primetime TV all the time,” Green said. “So we can’t allow ourselves to be out-competed.”

A bill that would have established a framework for NIL rules at UH 

 to pass the state Legislature this year. But Green said he would support the measure a second time around, adding that most bills take multiple attempts to pass.

“If I have to use some emergency asks, I’ll be happy to do that humbly with the legislature,” Green said.  

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, himself a former UH football player and assistant coach, said he would likely not have become mayor if not for his time on the field here. But, he added, the business of college sports has changed dramatically since his day.

“I had a lot of romantic stuff from my past, but I know it was exactly that: it was the past,” Blangiardi said. “We’re in a different world order right now.”

However, Blangiardi and Green emphasized that investing in UH Athletics does not mean a lack of investment in UH academics.

“We’re already out there as an academic institution,” Blangiardi said. “What we don’t want to have is a disparity between that academic excellence and potential for athletic excellence.”

“It’s not just about finding a giant pile of money and giving it to one athlete,” Green said. “It’s about making sure we have good meals for our student athletes, so that they can be nourished, so they can thrive, so they can do well on the playing field. It’s about making sure that we have the wherewithal to give them a great education.

“But also some could become mayors and leaders,” Green went on. “Others will become heads of industry here … We see them becoming young executives after being successful athletes. So there is really a ton of synergy that occurs when we thrive in sports.”

Greenfootball

<title>UH Mānoa Athletics generated $753 million in economic value since 2023, study finds</title>

State officials tout new report as reason to further invest in UH sports.

UH Mānoa Athletics generated $753 million in economic value since 2023, study finds

Lopaka and Tanya Kapanui

Lopaka Kapanui and Tanya Kapanui

After collecting spooky stories for more than 25 years, it’s interesting to note that a ghost story from Japan is one of the most popular tales in Hawai‘i. But how did it get here, you ask?

In the late 1800s, the first contract laborers from Japan began arriving in Hawai‘i to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations. Later, the influx of immigrants from Japan, China, the Philippines, Korea, and Portugal, particularly during the Hawai‘i plantation era, resulted in a unique interethnic society. These immigrant settlers brought with them their families, food, culture, and sense of community. They also brought their religions, superstitions, and ghosts.

Yōkai are a class of supernatural beings deeply rooted in Japanese spiritual traditions. Although there are a number of different expressions for ghosts, spirits, and monsters in the Japanese language, the modern use of the term “yōkai” in Hawai‘i and the Western world has come to represent a broad category of various supernatural entities.

The legend of the faceless ghost, known as noppera-bō in Japan, is a yōkai that resembles a human with no face. The creature is often mistaken for mujina, the badger or tanuki (raccoon dog) ghosts, who are shapeshifters and often appear as noppera-bō. Mujina are tricksters said to enjoy tormenting wicked people.

The true noppera-bō is an entity that looks like a regular person but has no face. They are usually harmless and are primarily known for frightening people. In some legends, the noppera-bō appears as an ordinary human being before its eyes, nose, and mouth disappear, leaving a blank sheet of skin where its face should be. When this yōkai touches the face of an unsuspecting victim, the victim’s facial features disappear, causing them to become noppera-bō.

Over the years, Hawai‘i has had its own sightings of the faceless ghost in places like the Waiākea Villas in Hilo, an intermediate school in Kailua, and the Moanalua school campus.

In May 1959, several children at a middle school in Pālolo told their parents about a faceless woman roaming the halls. The rumors spread quickly to other students and faculty, and the police department received frantic calls from parents to investigate. The principal at the time stated that the stories must have been greatly exaggerated by the students and asked for the parents’ help dispelling the rumors.

Just four days later, a newspaper editorial described sightings of a faceless woman at the Wai‘alae Drive-In Theatre in Kaimukī.

According to one version, a young woman entered the restroom around midnight to put on fresh lipstick. In the mirror, she saw a figure behind her with half a body, long hair, and no face. She turned around quickly, but no one was there. The restroom door slammed shut by itself and locked. The girl screamed and fainted, ending up in the hospital.

Another story states that a woman went to the restroom and noticed someone standing in front of the mirror, combing her long, black hair. The woman moved closer to the hair-brushing stranger and spoke to her. The person in front of the mirror turned slightly toward the woman. She had no face. The woman was so frightened, she ended up in the hospital with a nervous breakdown.

As most people know, the drive-in used to sit next to the Kāhala Cemetery, also known as Ocean View Cemetery. According to a map published in 1929, the cemetery stretched from where it is now, all the way to where 20th Avenue met Hoku Avenue before the Lunalilo Freeway was built. At some point, the burial grounds were cut in half, and the theater was built on the ‘Ewa side of the lot. Today, a storage facility sits atop the old drive-in site, and there are houses along the mauka and ‘Ewa borders, but the rest of the cemetery is still there.

As for the faceless ghost, she hasn’t disappeared with the theater. She’s reportedly been seen several times just across the street. People claim to have encountered her in the mall bathroom and the aisles of a nearby grocery store.

A person approached me about a crazy incident in the shoe section of a department store in that mall. It was the start of a sale, and the department was filled with shoppers looking for deals on the clearance rack that had been marked down again. But suddenly, people started dropping their shoes on the floor and leaving the area, as if they were avoiding something.

The store employee went to check it out and saw a strange woman in a red dress with long, black hair, grabbing shoes off the racks with one hand and piling them onto her arm. She was creating a mess as boxes and shoes fell to the floor. The woman’s body seemed to be shaking with tension.

The saleswoman approached the lady from behind and called out, “Excuse me?”

The stranger didn’t acknowledge the saleswoman, so she called out again, louder this time. Suddenly, the strange lady froze, holding an empty shoebox in her hand. She crumpled the box like it was a piece of paper, let out a horrible scream, and then threw the shoes she was holding to the ground.

The saleswoman said that when the lady in the red dress turned around, she had no face.

“I left,” she said, “I didn’t go upstairs to clock out. I didn’t even talk to my manager. I just left. There’s no way I’d ever go back in that store.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Have you seen the faceless woman?"}]

Waialae Public Storage

<title>The Faceless Woman of Wai‘alae</title>

The drive-in theatre on Wai‘alae Avenue may be gone, but the famous faceless ghost that haunted it is not — in fact, she's been spotted across the street at the mall.

The Faceless Woman of Wai‘alae

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

in both surgical and stroke care, with a goal of improving patient treatment and recovery close to home.

O’ahu residents can now access the newest generation of robotic-assisted surgical technology — 

 — currently only available on island at the Kailua-based hospital. Across the state, the Hilo Benioff Medical Center is the only other hospital using this latest model, while other health care facilities utilize 

the fourth-generation system, according to Dr. Jon “Kai” Yamaguchi of Adventist Health Castle.

“At the current time, this is the most advanced surgical system in the world,” he says, noting that technology is always changing.

What’s the differences in capabilities between the models? He likened it to the new iPhone 18.

“In terms of the cases you can do, it’s very similar,” Yamaguchi told Aloha State Daily. “But can you make a call on your iPhone 5? Of course, you can. Can you make that same call on your brand-new iPhone 18? Absolutely. But the way you interact with the equipment, the technology and the advancements in the hardware and the software are what really make the difference.”

He adds that the da Vinci 5, which was just released last year and acquired by Castle several months ago, has 10,000 times more computing power; the 

visualization is also clearer; and the new force feedback feature allows surgeons to physically "feel" tissue tension instead of solely relying on visual cues. 

For patients, one benefit of robot-assisted surgeries is “quicker recovery with less tissue trauma.”

“The less force you can put into a piece of tissue, the less likely you are to injure that tissue,” 

Yamaguchi explained. “We’re trying to get patients better, faster, with as little cosmetic impact as we can. If I can do a surgery in a way that leaves a patient that much more confident, feeling at their best, that’s certainly a priority.”

Ultimately, he hopes the new system will help expand the number of cases the hospital can do, while improving individual care and giving patients the option to be treated at home. Internally, he says, part of that is shortening the learning curve for new robotic surgeons.

Raised in California, Yamaguchi told ASD that he knew he wanted to become a doctor at a young age. He 

graduated from medical school at Temple University in 1999 and went on to train in general surgery and transplantation.

“Medicine was a career that had a good balance of science, objectivity, personal interaction, and the technical aspect with surgery,” said 

Yamaguchi, who also served in the U.S. Army Reserve.

He’s been practicing in Hawaiʻi since 2013, exclusively at Castle since 2021, and is nearing his 1,000th robotic-assisted surgery so far.

When asked what this milestone means to him, Yamaguchi said, “It’s just a number, but I think it shows my commitment, as well as my institution’s commitment to not just provide OK surgery with OK results but really trying to be a front-runner for our island and our patients.”

“Healthcare is not an easy profession, but it is very fulfilling,” he continued. “We are the most geographically isolated landmass that’s populated in the world. We need qualified and quality healthcare practitioners here – there’s always a shortage but having the latest generation of technology on our island, allows patients to receive the same, if not better, care than patients across the country and the world.”

Learn more about the da Vinci 5, please at 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Stroke care"}]

Earlier this month, Adventist Health Castle also debuted the state’s only Volt Pulsed Field Ablation System, an advanced treatment option for atrial fibrillation, which increases the risk of stroke, heart failure and other serious complications.

Unlike traditional methods, The Volt Pulsed Field Ablation System uses targeted electrical pulses to treat the tissue causing the irregular heartbeat, while reducing the risk of damage to surrounding tissues.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Dr. Ojeda-Melendez sees patients at:"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Adventist Health Castle Specialty Care"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"642 ʻUlukahiki Street, Suite 103, Kailua"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"808-263-5009"}]

Adventist Health Surgery

<title>Adventist Health Castle invests in new surgical, stroke equipment</title>

The Kailua-based hospital is now utilizing the da Vinci 5 surgical system, the latest and only model on the island. Meet one of the doctors operating it and learn more about its recent advancements in both surgical and stroke care.

Adventist Health Castle invests in new surgical, stroke equipment

As you’re driving towards Wai‘anae, there are spots on the H-1 freeway that allow glimpses of the wide expanse of the ‘Ewa Plain, famous for its dry, flat landscape filled with homes and businesses. Within the ‘Ewa moku (district) is the largest ahupua‘a (land division) on O‘ahu that extends from the Wai‘anae mountains to the sea, called Honouliuli. Although it may seem like the area was once uninhabitable, the reality is quite the opposite.

For generations, Hawaiians used every available resource not only to survive, but to thrive on the rugged plain. The coastal plain contained limestone and coral formations, including natural depressions where soil accumulated. Freshwater moved through the area both above ground, in streams, and underground through the porous limestone and its network of cavities and passages.

The rich soil and fresh springs provided the elements needed for agriculture, including the special kāī koi kalo renowned for making exceptional poi. It was so highly regarded that accounts describe people traveling to ʻEwa just to taste it, and being so impressed that they wanted to stay.

Along the coast, people fished and gathered other marine resources. The waters off ʻEwa were once famous for their abundance of limu. Oneʻula, along the Honouliuli coast, was known as Hale o Limu, or the House of Limu, where extensive beds of seaweed grew along the reefs. Among the limu gathered there was limu manauea, prized as food and remembered by kūpuna as especially abundant in ʻEwa. My wife fondly remembers her grandparents, who lived in ʻEwa, fishing and gathering limu from the shore for dinner.

The name Oneʻula is often interpreted as “red sand,” although other sources may consider it as “blood sand” or “royal sand.” Archaeological records have identified settlement areas with features suggesting people lived and worked there for generations. Among the items found were house platforms, trails, garden plots, and burial sites.

By the late 19th century, the landscape began changing on a massive scale. The discovery of artesian water beneath the ʻEwa Plain in 1879 made it possible to irrigate land that had previously been difficult to farm on an industrial scale. Sugar cane fields spread across the plain, eventually covering thousands of acres. What had once been a landscape of Hawaiian villages, agricultural fields, trails, wetlands, and coastal resources became a vast plantation landscape of cane fields, irrigation ditches, roads, rail lines, and plantation communities.

For much of the 20th century, if you traveled through this part of ʻEwa, sugar cane was the landscape. The fields stretched across the plain, and the rhythms of life were tied to the plantation and its crops. But the sugar era eventually came to an end.

In 1988, the land that would become Ocean Pointe was purchased for development, beginning another major transformation of the area. Over the following years, former agricultural land was gradually converted into residential neighborhoods, streets, schools, parks, and the community we know today as Ocean Pointe.

It is easy to look around Ocean Pointe now and see only a modern suburban community. The community is still young, but beneath the buildings, houses, and pavement is a much older story. In particular, the ‘Ewa Plain is considered to be within the broad expanse of Kaupe‘a, the gathering place for wandering spirits who did not make it to their final ancestral realm. There are also mo‘olelo about the menehune and the huaka‘i pō, or night marchers.

People approach us all the time about strange things happening in their Ocean Pointe homes. One family described small footprints that appeared on their walls and ceiling. Another mentioned strange noises, like things moving around in their daughter’s closet. One man said that during the two years he and his girlfriend lived in their Ocean Pointe home, they’ve had their feet pulled while they were sleeping, seen shadows where no one was standing, had a strange mark that looked like blood appear on their wall, and found a small handprint, like that of a child, but they don’t have any children. Another woman talked about how she panicked one night after feeling like someone tugged on her leg, even though her husband was sleeping and there was no one else in the room.

Around 2014, we received an email from a family living in Ocean Pointe. They were having spiritual trouble in their home and mentioned it to their neighbor, who suggested the family contact us.

One morning, while the wife and son were in their rooms, they heard a ruckus downstairs that sounded like the dog tearing up the Christmas tree. But when they got to the loft area overlooking the living room, they saw their Christmas tree spinning around. The wife clarified that they didn’t have a rotating stand; it was just a simple tree stand with the long screws that held the tree still. Yet, there it was, spinning around.

The husband said that in their upstairs bedroom, they would find the dresser drawers open, with all the clothes strewn about. In the two sons’ bedroom, they claimed they had weird feelings to the point where it felt like someone was sitting on them, pinning them both to their beds. The daughter said her bedroom had a strong presence and that she never felt alone there, as if someone wasn’t just watching her but literally judging her every move. One son even had deep scratch marks on the back of his calf, but he had no memory of how he got them. His calf just started burning, and when he looked, he saw the scratches.

Our team then went to the home and conducted our investigation while the family waited at a nearby fast food place. As I walked into the living room behind our team, an orb of light floated past me. One of my team members also saw it, right there, plain as day. The family had security cameras set up in their house and were watching from their phone when they, too, saw the same orb of light.

After some discussion and a blessing, the family said they still felt that their house was haunted, but it was much less stressful than before. Knowing the history of the area in which they lived allowed them to be better prepared, both psychologically and spiritually.

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Ocean Pointe Community Ctr

<title>Wandering Spirits in an ‘Ewa Neighborhood</title>

Before the suburbs and before sugar, the ‘Ewa plain had a thriving Native Hawaiian community and was renowned for its poi. It was also within the region known as Kaupe‘a, the gathering place for wandering spirits ... who perhaps wander there still.

Daily Smile: Friday, Oct. 30, 2026

ASD Staff

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Daily Smile: Friday, Oct. 30, 2026

Authors

ASD Staff

Reporter

More in Daily Smile

Daily Smile: Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026

Daily Smile: Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026

Daily Smile: Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026

Daily Smile: Monday, Oct. 26, 2026

Most read