TALK STORY
Hella Lunnen
Senior Polynesian Cultural Center missionary Hella Lunnen—still spry at 89 years old—pulls her weight with the “younger” senior missionaries at the Mission Settlement, an area consisting of three buildings dedicated to honoring contributions of early Christian missionaries to Laʽie.
Senior missionary recalls Center’s pre-1963 opening
When Elder Michael Theobald and his wife, Sister Shauna Theobald, completed their volunteer service as senior leadership training missionaries for full-time employees and orientation for new Center student workers in October 2017, it wasn’t his first experience at the Cultural Center.
In the summer of 1963, while labor missionaries and community volunteers were still finishing the future PCC, Elder Theobald was a 14-year-old teenager who also had opportunities to help. Read his memories about those early Center days at:
https://blog.polynesia.com/michael-theobald
Tahitian alumnus creates Laie mural
Eriki Marchand, former “chief” of the Polynesian Cultural Center’s Marquesas tohua, recently revisited Laie to install a mural honoring the visit of King Kalākaua to Laie in 1894.
PCC videographer produces award-winning film
Milton Kaka’s video, “Tala,” traces the death of an infant girl in Samoa and its subsequent impact over 60 years ago.
Virtual choir touches hearts at 60th-anniversary devotional
The story behind the Cultural Center’s 60th-anniversary virtual choir video that was performed on screen during the opening devotional on October 8, 2023, in the BYU–Hawaii Cannon Activities Center, and is now online.
‘Big Joe’ Vakalala returns to the Center
“Big Joe” Vakalalavanua was a very popular Fijian student-employee at the Center in the 1960s and only returned once in 2002 after graduating.
