Dr. Busaba Yip (right) greets visiting Father Eduardo at the Wo Hing Museum on Front Street.

LAHAINA – There’s good news and not so good news.

EXTRAORDINARY ENDSLEYS – Dynamo Pat Endsley and Richard Endsley – in their annual appearance before the Rotary Club of Lahaina Sunrise – reported that their tutoring program had 90 tutors offering help to 280 grade and high schoolers this year.

Fifteen Nook tablets are now being used to sharpen reading skills.

Some perfect attendees were rewarded with a field trip to the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua to expose them to new things, and the kids returned the favor by cleaning up nearby Fleming beach. The tutoring group founder is also arranging field trips to the world’s second largest telescope on Haleakala and an astronomy club in Pukalani to spur interest in astronomy.

Pat, at last, is scaling back, appointing seven managers for finance, operations, technology reproduction and other functions she used to manage virtually by herself with help from Richard. Call Pat if you would like to be a volunteer tutor or contribute funds to purchase more Nooks.

FIREWORKS ON THE FOURTH? The LahainaTown Action Committee, which once sponsored extraordinary events like the fondly remembered International Festival of Canoes, is struggling once again to get its house in order. Two of its best board members have resigned.

Fundraising for the Fourth of July fireworks (that LAC took over from the Maui Chamber of Commerce) is far short of its $50,000 goal. The chamber’s four-year effort was a well-oiled machine fueled by extensive publicity and promotion, and by one prolific Lahaina fundraiser who is still on the board but has been assigned other duties this year.

The group reportedly is focusing on getting small individual contributions instead of sizable contributions from businesses that benefit from the event. The business community needs to step up not only with money, but also with more representation on the board to put its know-how to work for good effect.

GOODBYE HELEN AND PAPA – Cherished former Lahaina News food critic Helen Reed and her husband, Rob (Papa), are packing up and heading to the Mainland to be closer to family. Both are in their nineties. They will be very much missed.

LAHAINA ADVENTURES – Finally settled in after an 18-day cruise to the South Seas to be greeted by scores of new political signs posted everywhere and arrival of the ship we sailed on in Lahaina Harbor for the second segment of its cruise to Alaska.

Shipboard, we met an extraordinary Jesuit priest from Bogota, Columbia, who just happened to be living in the same Jesuit home as the former president of Loyola University of Chicago, who my wife worked closely with there.

We were so taken with Father Eduardo and his notable statement that heaven and hell are not places but all around us in the form of spirits, we invited him on the spot to be our house guest back in Lahaina. He had no place to stay for a few days and was interested in art. The art capital of Hawaii seemed a good place for him.

At the Wo Hing Museum, the charming Dr. Busaba Yip showed the 84-year-old Father Eduardo artifacts on loan that are 5,000 years old. Father asked so many good questions, the columnist began taking notes. We never made it upstairs, before the tired duo went over to Kimo’s for lunch.

We dropped into 505 Front St. Gallery to see pop artist Davo’s work and amazingly met two people from my hometown, Oak Park, Illinois, who were buying two Davo creations.

Davo showed up to sign them, and somehow the subject of tattoos came up. The lady, unprompted, showed the Jesuit priest hers two inches below her waistline. Just one more adventure with Father!

The next day, Father Eduardo attended a wonderful presentation at the Whalers Museum by another friend, Deb Caswell.

NEW PASTOR – Laki Pomaikai Ka’ahumanu is pictured on the cover of a special edition book called “Paradise Voices,” with the columnist/author’s name on the cover. Laki received a thank you card at one of his Sunday services addressed to Pastor Norm Bezane. Another first for Lahaina! n