Wylie Swapp creates Cultural Center’s name
Church College of Hawaii faculty member Wylie Swapp was involved with early phases of the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Church College of Hawaii faculty member Wylie Swapp was involved with early phases of the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Church engineer George Aposhian Jr. took this picture of traditional Samoan fale in Pavai’ai’i, American Samoa, in 1962 to prepare for building similar structures at the “Polynesian Village” site in Laie. (The name “Polynesian Cultural Center” had not been adopted yet.)
From tour guide to tram driver, Pōuli Magalei Sr.’s nearly 50-year journey with the Polynesian Cultural Center was filled with so much hear, history and testimony.
Susana Magalei-Wong grew up in Laie and worked at the Center as a girl but moved to Honolulu in 1975 and recently retired from Hawaiian Airlines.
Shirley Dela Rosa grew up in Laie and worked at the Center as a teenager but later moved to American Samoa where she still lives today.
Aunty Kela Miller was born in Laie, learned hula from her ‘ohana, danced at the Hukilau, then became an original Hawaiian Villager and dancer at the PCC.
Aunty Valetta Nepia Jeremiah from New Zealand devoted 50 years of her life to the Polynesian Cultural Center and was revered as a “living treasure.”
Tivakno Ieli Sievinen was originally from the small, remote island of Rotuma, a political dependency of Fiji with its own language and culture. (She passed away in July 2020.)
Ottley Wright — came to Laie in 1984 and worked at the PCC as a canoe tour and Laie Tour guide — at the Center’s 50th-anniversary reunion.
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