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Abrahaim Aiona '43
Veteran, Policeman, Politician, Hawaiian Affairs
Treasure #2
Abraham Aiona was born August 29, 1925 in Honolulu. He was one of eight children raised in a poor but strict Seventh-day Adventist home. Upon his graduation from HMA in 1943 he along with several boys from his Boy Scout Troop in Kaimuki enlisted in the US Army in Honolulu and took his basic at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.
Abe was a Veteran of World War II. He was a member of the 82nd Airbone Divison that jumped in Holland and Germany.
After the war he joined the Honolulu Police Department and spent 22 years before he was urged by Honolulu Police Chief Dan Liu (HMA graduate '20) to apply for the Chief of Police position on the Island of Maui. Aiona was "chosen over 16 applicants to take over a department racked by politics and undisciplined officers. He raided a notorious Lahaina gambling den and cracked down on organized crime. He disciplined or dismissed officers for everything from slander to stealing". His oldest son Abe Jr. said that his father told him "you are going to make friends and you are going to make enemies. The enemies you don't have to worry about...just worry about your friends; you are not going to please everybody". His added that his father stood for principles learn while a young boy from his parents who were "really strict and the principles he learned at Hawaiian Mission Academy." His friends were many, "we couldn't go into a restaurant and eat as a family without him stopping to talk to twenty people," said his hanai daughter Ellen Caringer.
He served the people of Hawaii for more than 50 years. After retiring from the Maui Police Department, he was re-elected to the Maui County Council four times and in 1990 was elected as a Trustee for the Office for Hawaiian Affairs (OHA, a department created by Governor John D. Waihe`e III, another graduate of HMA, '64). He is known to have parlay the trust's $19 million bankroll into $150 million and then nearly doubled it before resigning due to his health.
Abraham Aiona died in his sleep at his son's home in Waimanalo, at 75 years old, on June 22, 2001. He was a World War II veteran, a paratrooper, a police chief, a county councilman, a OHA trustee, a servant for the people of his beloved Hawaii, a husband, a father of 5 children, grandfather of seven, a great grandfather of 2, and a "Treasure of HMA".
Veteran, Policeman, Politician, Hawaiian Affairs
Treasure #2
Abraham Aiona was born August 29, 1925 in Honolulu. He was one of eight children raised in a poor but strict Seventh-day Adventist home. Upon his graduation from HMA in 1943 he along with several boys from his Boy Scout Troop in Kaimuki enlisted in the US Army in Honolulu and took his basic at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.
Abe was a Veteran of World War II. He was a member of the 82nd Airbone Divison that jumped in Holland and Germany.
After the war he joined the Honolulu Police Department and spent 22 years before he was urged by Honolulu Police Chief Dan Liu (HMA graduate '20) to apply for the Chief of Police position on the Island of Maui. Aiona was "chosen over 16 applicants to take over a department racked by politics and undisciplined officers. He raided a notorious Lahaina gambling den and cracked down on organized crime. He disciplined or dismissed officers for everything from slander to stealing". His oldest son Abe Jr. said that his father told him "you are going to make friends and you are going to make enemies. The enemies you don't have to worry about...just worry about your friends; you are not going to please everybody". His added that his father stood for principles learn while a young boy from his parents who were "really strict and the principles he learned at Hawaiian Mission Academy." His friends were many, "we couldn't go into a restaurant and eat as a family without him stopping to talk to twenty people," said his hanai daughter Ellen Caringer.
He served the people of Hawaii for more than 50 years. After retiring from the Maui Police Department, he was re-elected to the Maui County Council four times and in 1990 was elected as a Trustee for the Office for Hawaiian Affairs (OHA, a department created by Governor John D. Waihe`e III, another graduate of HMA, '64). He is known to have parlay the trust's $19 million bankroll into $150 million and then nearly doubled it before resigning due to his health.
Abraham Aiona died in his sleep at his son's home in Waimanalo, at 75 years old, on June 22, 2001. He was a World War II veteran, a paratrooper, a police chief, a county councilman, a OHA trustee, a servant for the people of his beloved Hawaii, a husband, a father of 5 children, grandfather of seven, a great grandfather of 2, and a "Treasure of HMA".
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