Veterans Corner

Community Contributed

By Jesse Church

Aloha all my fellow veterans and residents of Molokai, old Jesse here with all the veterans news and upcoming events. Wow, The Molokai Dispatch is celebrating 30 years of service to the community, and still going strong. They must be doing something right. The Molokai Dispatch was born on Jan. 16, 1985 with its first newspaper, and has not missed a beat. You know, I can almost remember when I was 30!

What makes a newspaper good that people want to read? Could it be the stories they choose to cover, or the writing style, or maybe the employees, or the management? Well, in the case of The Molokai Dispatch, I believe that it’s all of those things and more, things like the community calendar, upcoming events, the bulletin board, and the community contributed articles written by members of our community. And, of course, all the news of our island; they tell us what happened in the last week, and they write both sides of issues so we can make an intelligent decision about the issues at hand and whether to support it, or not. At this time I would like to thank Mr. Todd Yamashita, majority owner of The Molokai Dispatch, Ms. Catherine Cluett, the editor-in-chief, all the employees, and interns, special thanks to Mrs. Sarah Ching, sales manager, and last, but by no means least, Ms. Colleen Uechi.

The veterans of Molokai thank the Dispatch for giving us a weekly column, so all our veterans know what’s going on at the Department of Veterans Affairs. To all the employees, and interns, I sincerely thank you for all the help and the encouragement with the writing of the Veterans Corner. I have been truly blessed by all you people, along with my fellow veterans and residents of Molokai, and as in the words of the immortal Lou Gehrig, “today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” and I consider all the people of Molokai as my family, with all my thanks. My hope is that The Molokai Dispatch, management and employees will remain wise in their reporting of the issues and stories of Molokai, and may this continue for as long as there is a Molokai and its people.

The Molokai Dispatch has done this island a great service for 30 years, it makes me wonder how people got their news before the Dispatch was born, so let us all, every man, women, and child stand up and say thank you for a job extremely well done. I also believe that the ownership, management, and employees wish to thank all the people of Molokai for their support, and being faithful readers of the Dispatch. Any way you look at it, it’s a win-win situation for all parties, with the people of Molokai I believe getting the biggest benefit.

To my fellow veterans and residents of Molokai, this was not my usual column, but what I wrote was important to me. I’ll have my usual column back next week. Please remember that old Jesse loves each and every one of you from my heart, and in closing I leave you with this. I still think it should be called The Molokai Scuttlebutt Dispatch. See you all next week. Aloha.