HONOLULU, Hawaii — BYU-Hawaii President Eric B. Shumway and the university's Concert Choir put on a special "concert of appreciation" on March 23 for Honolulu Mayor Muliufi "Mufi" Hannemann and city and county employees.
The concert, which was held in the Honolulu Hale (Hale meaning "house" or "building" in Hawaiian), also marked appreciation extended from Mayor Hannemann, who is a Church member, to BYU-Hawaii President Eric B. Shumway, who will soon leave the Laie campus to preside over the Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple.
"I'm also here today because I wanted to officially bid adieu to a very special friend of the Hannemann family, a gentleman I have known for many, many years — first on the basketball court, I believe, where he was one of the feistiest guards I have ever played against. He would never give the big men any slack when we would get the ball under the basket," Mayor Hannemann said.
"Of course, as hard as he played on the basketball court, he also has excelled in many, many areas, including being a top-notch ecclesiastical leader of our faith, but most importantly, too, and of late, of being president of BYU-Hawaii."
Mayor Hannemann then read a special proclamation citing President Shumway's work in Tonga, at BYU-Hawaii, the Polynesian Cultural Center and the community, and commended his "many, many achievements."
The mayor added he wants President Shumway to come back to Honolulu when he completes his new assignment as president of the Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple, because "this is the kind of gentleman, this is the kind of family, that I'm very, very proud to call one of our own, and we cannot afford to lose in the long term."
President Shumway responded: "We are very grateful to be here today to express our appreciation to the City and County of Honolulu, as a university presenting our premier performance organization, the BYU-Hawaii Concert Choir.
The Honolulu Hale performance, under the direction of Professor Michael Belnap, featured some of the numbers the BYU-Hawaii Concert Choir will perform during its three-week tour in May to Urumqi, Xian, Beijing and Tianjin, China; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
