Rell Sunn

RELL SUNN

Rell was at once a role model, swimwear model, radio personality, motivational speaker, and hula instructor, giving of herself to a variety of groups. "We can dream forever, but we have to do something now." - Rell Sunn

BACKGROUND
Rell (a typical Hawaiian mix of Hawaiian, Chinese, and Irish) lived her entire life in Makaha – Oahu’s West Side, a beach town troubled by crime, drug abuse, high teen pregnancy and school dropout rates. But to Rell, it was a place full of family and friends and her beloved ocean—"paradise on earth."

Instructed by surfing great Buffalo Keaulana, she began surfing at the age of 4 and by the time she became a teenager was well-known and widely admired in her hometown of Makaha, Oahu for her grace on the waves. By the time she was 14, she was competing in surf meets and won her first of many contests when she was 16.

CANCER
Stricken with breast cancer 14 years ago at the age of 32 while on pro tour in California, she remained active in a variety of ways, working as a radio disc jockey and surf reporter, physical therapist at a Waianae care home and counselor at a cancer research center.

Cancer was a devastating blow both personally and professionally when her sponsors decided to drop her after her mastectomy. Without any family history or personal experience with the disease, Sunn struggled through surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, determined to outlive her one-year prognosis.

Rell discovered that Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women have the highest incidence of breast cancer of all women in the United States and detection and prevention programs were largely under funded. She became an activist for breast cancer awareness and for the protection of the environment from the toxins she believed caused her disease.

In 1966, after a trip to California with Duke Kahanamoku to attend a world championship, she began traveling around the world to compete professionally.

From 1968 (Duke Kahanamoku’s death), she was Hawaii’s best representative for the sport of surfing – along with the Keaulanas and (Waianae lifeguard and surfer) Pua Mokuau.

In the early 70's, Rell was instrumental in establishing the Women's Professional Surfing Association and founding the women's pro surfing tour in which she twice finished third in the year end rankings. She also grappled with single parenthood with her daughter Jan.

In 1975 she co-founded the women's professional surfing tour (Women’s International Surfing Association – WISA – the first women’s pro circuit) with Mary Setterholm, Jericho Poppler and MaryLou (McGinnis) Drummy.

In 1976, she inaugurated her greatest legacy, the annual Menehune Surfing Competition for kids at Makaha Beach that Sunn established and supervised for many years on the West Side.

1977 found Rell honored by being named Hawaii's first female lifeguard

In 1979 she formed Women's Pro Surfing (WPS) with pro women Jericho Poppler, Lynne Boyer, Margo Oberg, Cherie Gross, Linda Davoli, Debbie Beacham, Becky Benson and Brenda Scott.

In 1982 she ranked first in the international professional surfing ratings on longboard. She became known as the "Queen of Makaha" for her efforts to teach children to surf and for her involvement in many community programs.

In 1986, she joined a Surfer magazine expedition that brought surfing to communist China.

In 1995, she married former professional surfer and outspoken shaper Dave Parmenter, her third husband. Sunn arranged sponsorship and chaperoned 24 Menehune surfers to the Biarritz Surf Festival in France. The contest continues today through the guidance of her daughter Jan.

In 1997, the film “Heart of the Sea” traces Rell's personal and public life, interweaving her last interview -- two months before her death -- with archival footage and news, home videos, and interviews with her daughter, friends, fellow surfers, her doctors, and others in the community whose lives were changed by the way Rell chose to live hers.

On January 2, 1998 at 9:00 P.M., she died after a long bout with breast cancer in Makaha. Named one of Hawai'i's most influential women of the 20th century by ABC television, Sunn - whose Hawaiian name means Heart of the Sea - was eulogized in the New York Times for having "captured the heart of Hawai'i during a 14-year battle with cancer."

	Toby Dawson

TOBY DAWSON

Freestyle skier Toby Dawson (aka “The Ice Man Cometh”), as a 25-year-old member of the United States Freestyle Ski Team, is using dazzling acrobatics (i.e. performing 360s, off-axis 720 and rotisserie-style spins) and extreme attitude (30 feet above ground) to fight for an Olympic medal

Toby competes in the moguls competition of freestyle that requires him to ski through a field of snow mounds, make a jump a third of the way down, ski through more moguls, hit another jump and then race to the finish line. Judges then score him on speed and technical execution of his turns and aerials.

Toby’s signature move was a 360-degree rotation off a jump, doing a daffy iron cross. "A daffy is like where you kick your right leg in front and then you kick your left leg back so it's like a flip, almost, and then when you get 180, you twist your toes in and bend your knees up and you make a cross with your skis.

"What drives me the most crazy while competing is watching these people ski these conservative runs and doing well," he says. "For me, I want to put down a run that's breathtaking to the limit every single time, and I'd rather go all out and blow up than just put a run down that I know I can do every single time. I just want to step it up a level every time I get on snow and compete."

Toby was adopted at the age of 3 by Deborah and Mike Dawson, two ski instructors from Vail. While the Dawsons knew nothing about Toby's biological parents, they recognized that their son had athletic ability that was waiting to be reaped.

K.C., the Dawson's second adoptive son, arrived from Seoul in 1983, and he and Toby had a childhood filled with ski lessons and hockey games. Although younger in age, K.C. was more socially comfortable and often served as Toby's spokesperson.

His mother is elated with how the sport has helped groom her son by being open and talkative, conducting interviews, poised and gracious.

He just may be the only Asian American in competitive skiing, which means Toby is representing people that, while growing up, he had no real connection to. Vail was an all-white community when he was first adopted, and while his parents sent him and his brother to Korean heritage camps, he only wanted to concentrate on fitting in with his peers - especially when he was faced with racial epithets and ignorant comments.

"I really viewed myself as kind of this all-American kid. I guess the blinders were on when I looked in the mirror. I didn't want to think that I was Korean, and I didn't want anyone to tell me that I was different than my blue-eyed, blonde-haired buddy."

It was his talent in sports that he admits helped him find a niche where he felt powerful and accepted. Toby says that the older he gets, the more comfortable he is in his skin. He recognizes that others may be looking to him to represent, and he has even taken the time to speak at a couple Korean heritage camps.

Like many things Korean, Toby is big in Japan. He has a ski camp set up in his name just outside of Nagano (along with camps in Canada and New Zealand) at which he teaches at once a year, as well as a fan club.

He relies on endorsement money, although with an Asian face, he might not be the moneymaker ski sponsors want to go after. "I definitely have asked myself that sometimes," he says. "That is why I try to push the envelope, you know, push the sport as much as I can. To be someone that's a little bit more different, to be someone that's doing the most difficult tricks. That's where I can kind of gain ground on someone else."

Acclaimed filmmaker Warren Miller got word of Toby's antics and asked the brazen freestyler to appear in four of his famous ski documentaries, an honor for any skier.

By the time 2006 rolls around, Toby will have been training on the national team for nearly eight years. If he makes the Olympic team, it will mean that he has finally reached the end of his marathon run. And then, the real race will begin.