Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 9, 1 September 2013 — Remembering Donna Lei Smythe [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Remembering Donna Lei Smythe

At the Kalani Ali'i Awards banquet, a short tribute will be paid to the late Donna Lei Smythe, longtime pelekikena of 'Ahahui Ka'ahumanu Honolulu Chapter and past chair of 'Aha Hlpu'u and the Kalani Ali'i Awards. Smythe, 65, died Dec. 9, 2012, at St. Francis Hospice-West after a bout with cancer. She worked as a Westem Motor Tariff Bureau administrative secretary. Smythe served as president of 'Ahahui Ka'ahumanu Chapter

I of Honolulu since July 2005. She was a multigenerational 'ahahui member. Her bio said her great-great-grandmother Kamaka Stillman was a charter member; her grandmother Ellen Dwight Smythe was an 'Ahahui president, and her late mother, Marguerite Healani Smythe, was an 'Ahahui lifetime member. A 1965 Kamehameha alumna, Donna Lei Smythe was a lifetime member of the Kamehameha Schools Alumni Association and

of the O'ahu League of Republiean Women, and a former King Kamehameha Celebration eommissioner. In June, as 'Ahahui Ka'ahumanu members statewide were preparing to honor Smythe during Founders Day, Alberta Sanders, the current Honolulu Chapter president, said Smythe "was very well respected (and) a leader who kept us abreast of what was going on in the Hawaiian eommunity. She was a very strong person, and I believe she lived up to our Queen Ka'ahumanu." ■

Donna Lei Smythe. - Courtesy: Elaine Fergerstrom