NEWS FROM PAGES PAST
50 years ago — March 19, 1971
Ambition, Determination Made SL Freshman a Winner
A driving ambition and the determination to succeed. That’s what champions are made of.
At least that’s how you’d describe St. Louis High School freshman Ray Struss Jr., pictured left, the Honolulu Advertiser’s Champion Carrier of the Year.
The sort-of-shy, soft-spoken 14-year-old was just one of some 400 local teenage carriers who delivered the news to their customers’ doors a month ago.
A month from today, he’ll be on his way via New York to Portugal and Spain along with 300 other carriers nationwide on a two-week vacation courtesy of Parade magazine.
Ray Struss Jr. went on to serve as a lieutenant in the Honolulu Police Department and passed away in 2015 at age 58.
25 years ago — March 22, 1996
‘Her shoes won’t be filled’: The police force says goodbye to chaplain Sister Roberta Julie Derby
A long line of well-wishers circled the second-floor open air courtyard of the Honolulu Police Department Main Station March 13 to say goodbye to a special woman.
On March 17, Sister Roberta Julie Derby, who is suffering from cancer, left Hawaii and the police force where she served as a chaplain for 25 years to spend her last days with her community of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Saratoga, Calif.
“She’s not replaceable,” Chief of Police Michael S. Nakamura told the Hawaii Catholic Herald. “I don’t say this of very many people. Usually nobody is indispensable. But her shoes won’t be filled. There is nobody like her.”
Sister Roberta Julie Derby passed away on April 8, 1996, shortly after returning to the mainland. She was inducted into the Honolulu Police Department Hall of Fame in 2007 and a park next to HPD headquarters was named after her.
10 years ago – March 18, 2011
Hawaii’s coastal churches untouched by tsunami surges
None of Hawaii’s coastline Catholic churches and missions was seriously affected by the tsunami surges that hit the island in the early morning of March 11 generated by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Northern Japan.
The area in Hawaii hardest hit by tsunami action was Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island where about 20 homes were reported destroyed or damaged. According to Marjorie Fujimoto of St. Benedict Parish, Honaunau, which has a mission church in Kealakekua and another further south in Milolii, neither church structure was affected.
