Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 6, 1 Mei 2008 — R.M.Keahi Allen [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

R.M.Keahi Allen

Oct. 25, 1941 - April 7, 2008

Not many people ean elaim to have a song written for them. Renee-Michele Keahi Allen, who served under five governors on

the King Kamehameha Celebration Commission and served as a longtime trustee of the King Wilham Charles Lunalilo Trust Estate, was one of the special few. She passed away April 8 of complications from diabetes at age 66. leaving behind many loved ones, including a daughter, B.J. Allen, and three mo'opuna. Her husband, William "Billy" Allen Jr.. who also served many years on the commission, died last April. Allen's legacy includes her 30-year career as a proponent for the King Kamehameha commission and helping Lunalilo Home expand in recent years into adult day-care, temporary care and expanded food service. The addition of an adult day-care program was a dream of her late mother's, the entertainer and recording artist Napua Stevens. Allen's work perpetuating the Hawaiian culture includes founding the annual King Kamehameha Hula competition in Honolulu and organizing and advising its counterpart competition in Japan, organizing hula kahiko workshops on all islands led by hula masters, serving as executive director of the State Council on Hawaiian Heritage, traveling the South Pacific and Asia as a cultural representative, leading pā'ū riding groups to the annual Fiesta Bowl parade in Phoenix, and conducting workshops as a master pā'ū dresser so that the art would live on. She was also a member of the Daughters of Hawai'i. Allen, who was born in Kāhala, attended Kamehameha Schools and graduated from Castle High and the LIniversity of Hawai'i, where she earned a fine-arts degree. The song that was written for her, Keahi, by Jack Pitman, was recorded by her mother, Tony Conjugacion and the late Aunty Genoa Keawe. S

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