By Karen Valentine Kapono
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KeOlaMagazine.com | May – June July – August 2020
t’s race day at Hilo Bayfront. The summer outrigger canoe paddling season is in full swing. Colorful canoes are lined up, ready to race. Canoe club T-shirts with club insignia move through the crowd on paddlers of all ages, a seemingly chaotic scene. Until you hear a strong, commanding voice. Who is that woman with the bullhorn? Everyone knows it’s Aunty Maile—the one who keeps keiki and adults in line, the Big Island Sports Hall-of-Famer, renowned and respected for her half-century of canoe paddling leadership as paddler, coach, official, and race organizer. “My mom was harsh,” says her daughter Aloha Mauhili, who now carries the role of race secretary held for many years by her mother in the Moku O Hawai‘i Canoe Racing Association— only the third one in the history of the association. Aunty Maile Mauhili’s commanding voice is missing this year but will be echoing and remembered by many of the paddlers competing in the July championship regatta named after her: the Aunty Maile Mauhili/Moku O Hawai‘i Championships, recognizing Hawai‘i Island’s best teams. Sadly, Aunty Maile suffered an aneurysm last summer at age 85, after having been on the scene of a race just days before. She passed away October 19, 2019 at her family home in Keaukaha. Even with the legion of significant leaders in the long history of canoe paddling, no other island has someone’s name on a regatta championship. The Moku O Hawai‘i Canoe Racing Association board renamed the Hawai‘i Island championships in 1984, in recognition of Aunty Maile’s outstanding leadership and
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commitment. She was instrumental in the revival of the sport in Hilo during the 1950s and 60s. She served 38 years as race secretary for Moku O Hawai‘i, was coach and co-founder of the Kailana Canoe Club and a board member of the statewide Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association (HCRA). There are more than 70 clubs in the state association. Her tenure as Moku O Hawai‘i race secretary—an important job of checking the registration cards of more than a thousand paddlers—has little reward other than to know that all the paddlers can go home with the confidence that their results were officially confirmed and their efforts recognized. Every seat in the wa‘a (canoe) has an important role in competition. The slightest blip in timing and focus can affect the result. Aunty Maile’s role was to be an inspiration for each one. Reaching far beyond her official job of tallying the races, Aunty Maile embodied the aloha spirit of this recognized, pure Hawaiian sport of outrigger canoe paddling, helping to shape the characters of youth, and maintain the team spirit among adults as well. She took all the youth under her wing and guided them, literally, often paddling out with the kids to keep them straight, says her daughter. “Every time they would finish, she would give advice to each one, saying, ‘You can do better’—gave positive feedback, making the kids feel good and making it fun, too.” “It is up to us to serve as good role models to the younger generation,” Aunty Maile said upon her induction into the Big Island Sports Hall of Fame. “We, as adults, have the