40 Years Brings a Transition to The Molokai Dispatch

By The Molokai Dispatch Board of Directors

In 1985, The Molokai Dispatch first took shape on Myrle Florea’s dining table, printed on a typewriter and cut and pasted using X-Acto knives and rubber cement.
Forty years later, the weekly publication is still in print — now using the latest technology — serving Molokai as the island’s only remaining newspaper. We’ve come a long way, but much has remained the same – most of all, our commitment to informing and strengthening our community through locally produced, responsible journalism.
Now, the newspaper is on the brink of a big transition.
To ensure both the financial sustainability and community stewardship of the newspaper, The Molokai Dispatch is shifting to a nonprofit model.
Until now, we’ve been almost wholly reliant on local businesses to advertise. We’re eternally grateful to those who have supported the paper the past four decades. However, that’s no longer enough on its own to sustain the increasing costs of publishing and weekly operations.
Along with financial stability, we hope to create a model of community ownership for the future of the paper’s organizational structure. The Molokai Dispatch has always been operated for the community, and becoming a nonprofit will ensure it is community managed for future generations, guided by its board of directors and community advisors.
That’s why – as the paper celebrates four decades in print in 2025 – we’re choosing to adapt and make some significant changes to the way it operates. Instead of relying solely on advertisers, the paper, as a nonprofit, can utilize grant funding to help support weekly printing costs and foster future growth. The outcome of this major shift will bring positive changes to how we serve the community.
While our values and mission – sharing information, reporting with integrity, encouraging dialogue and ultimately, empowering our community – will remain unshaken, the transition to a nonprofit organization will mean we will be able to continue serving Molokai for many more decades to come, on a more sustainable path, with the continued support and increased involvement of the community.
Many Hands, One Paper
Over the years, The Molokai Dispatch operations moved between three locations, five owners, countless writers and interns and three taglines (remember ‘The Coconut Wireless of Molokai?’).
Leslee Florea, who was 10 at the time, spent many late nights watching her mother, Myrle, create the paper.
“I didn’t know how to type… I just kept her company,” Leslee recalls. “I remember falling asleep on the carpet near her.”
The first ever Dispatch was eight pages long, and on its front cover was an article discussing the island’s water system. Myrle wrote that this would be a unique paper, dedicated to progress and prosperity. She felt “there was a need on Molokai for a voice,” said Leslee.
“Some of the stuff my mom really put her heart into was he makule [kupuna] stories,” she explained. “She knew there was a generation coming to an end and she wanted to archive that. The only way she knew to do that was by writing newspaper articles.”
Around 1989, Myrle passed management of the paper on to Bill Bevens, who began an internship program, according to former Dispatch writer Kathleen Larson. Bevens moved the location into Kaunakakai – a more convenient location to follow island happenings – and set up shop in the old Kaunakakai electric office. Shortly after, the layout of the paper went digital.
In 1992, Bevens sold the Dispatch to Charlie Pastorino, but barely a year later, Pastorino had to move to the mainland. He told his friends, Molokai residents Edie and Gerry Anderson, that he’d have to close the Dispatch or pass ownership over to them, said Edie.
“At that point, things were pretty tense on Molokai, and we just didn’t feel that it would be a responsible thing to close the newspaper,” said Edie. “We felt that the newspaper was the only vehicle to get the public involved and know what was going on.”
The Andersons eventually moved headquarters to Maunaloa, where the revitalized town was bustling with activity. Between the two of them, they worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day, and even when Gerry was diagnosed with low-grade lymphoma in 2003, he was “doing books and editing copy from his hospital bed in Tripler,” said Edie.
Local boy Todd Yamashita bought The Molokai Dispatch from the Andersons in 2006.
Before he had an office, Yamashita created the paper on a desktop computer in his grandmother’s living room, continuing a Dispatch tradition of home-based production.
Bringing the paper’s headquarters back to Kaunakakai, Yamashita updated the Dispatch by launching a website and changing the newspaper to the more common broadsheet format from its older tabloid-size beginnings. During this time, the internship program flourished, offering talented young people a chance to develop and share their skills with the Molokai community.
“When I took on the business, Molokai had three competing newspapers and the island was at war with itself over the proposed La’au Point development,” said Yamashita. “Nearly 20 years later, Molokai is more peacefully determining our community’s future, and in this space, we continue advocacy for our values, culture and the land and sea itself. To me, the Dispatch’s transition is a means of more broadly and inclusively honoring and serving that same vision that has always continued pulling Molokai forward.”
In 2009, part-time Molokai residents Phil and Terri Pendergraft joined the Dispatch team when they became partners with Yamashita in business ownership, providing their support and expertise.
That same year, former intern Catherine Cluett Pactol became the Dispatch’s editor, strengthening community relationships and leading the team to win more than 30 Hawaii Excellence in Journalism Awards over the next 14 years.
In 2022, Jack Kiyonaga came back to Molokai to explore his family roots here, contributing to the paper as a reporter and then taking the role of editor – building on the paper’s history of providing compelling and well-researched news. We’re grateful for the leadership and energy he has brought.
Now, he is leaving Molokai to pursue his higher education; Jack will share his perspectives about his time with the Dispatch in a future issue.
Looking Ahead
With Jack leaving and the transition of the paper underway, we are now seeking a new editor, ideally from the Molokai community, to lead the paper through the next phase and into the future. The person selected to fill this full-time role needs excellent communication skills and the ability to separate their personal views from their professional role, continuing the paper’s mission of community inclusivity and journalistic integrity. For the job details and how to apply, visit TheMolokaiDispatch.com.
Building off 40 years of trusted, award-winning coverage dedicated to covering the island’s events, culture and critical news, the future looks promising.
“Since the 1980s, throughout changes internally, on this island, and in the world around us, the Dispatch has been an important part of the Molokai community,” said Phil Pendergraft, who serves as President of The Molokai Dispatch. “With this transition to a nonprofit model, we are confident that we are positioning the paper to continue to tell Molokai’s stories for decades to come.”
We are so grateful for Molokai’s support over the past 40 years and as we navigate these transitions, we continue to lean on our community to take stewardship of the paper in new ways.
The Molokai Dispatch has already begun the transition towards nonprofit incorporation, and is excited to share more details about what this will mean for the paper and community in the coming weeks.