LIHUE — Make a lei, wear a lei, give a lei is the theme of this year’s May Day is Lei Day celebration by the Kauai Museum that honors the legacy of well-known lei-making family, the Pomroy ohana.
Thursday is May 1. Lei Day is always celebrated on May Day — not a few days before or after May 1 for the sake of convenience. The Kauai Museum continues this tradition by hosting free admission to this year May Day is Lei Day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Kauai Museum Courtyard where the results of the museum’s annual lei contest are exhibited and made available for auction.
The contest traditionally attracts the attention of local lei makers that stay within the parameters of the competition that, this year, honors the legacy of generations of the Pomroy ohana. Entries to the contest are judged by a panel of judges selected by the Kauai Museum.
Throughout the day, the Kauai Association of Family and Community Education offers lei making instruction with fees being assessed for the material costs.
On Saturday, the Kauai Museum presents Happy’s 12th Annual Keiki La Lei Contest from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in the Kauai Museum Courtyard.
The contest was inspired by local well-known lei maker Happy Tamanaha who was a perennial competitor in the museum’s May Day Lei Contest.
Each child participating in the Keiki La Lei contest must be registered by a parent starting at 8:45 a.m. at the Kauai Museum’s back entrance parking area.
During the contest, children are able to create their own lei in a supervised area of the museum. Children aged 5 and younger can be accompanied by an adult.
Lei can be made using only natural plant material, limited to flowers, leaves, stems, roots and fruit. The use of endangered plants, mokihana or maile, is prohibited, and the lei will be disqualified.
All keiki lei entries will be displayed for viewing and auctioned off starting at 11 a.m.
Cash prize awarded for Keiki La Lei Contest are donated by the Happy Tamanaha family, the Kauai Museum, and Elvrine Chow of Heavenly Haku.
Funding for the May Day is Lei Day event is provided by Duke’s Kauai, Timbers Resort, Waimakua Foundation, Keoki’s Paradise and TS Restaurants.
Modern-day May Day dates further than 1923 when the Hawaii Territorial Legislature passed Joint Resolution No. 1 acknowledging floral elements, or flowers associated with each island, such as the mokihana berry for Kauai. The Outdoor Circle initiated this resolution that attempted to name the hibiscus, or aloalo, as the flower emblem of the territory.
May Day celebrations featured the royal courts dressed in their island colors and wearing their island lei. The first of this type of pageantry took place on May 1, 1928, and was named Lei Day by a poet, Don Blanding, and a newspaper columnist, Grace Tower Warren, because they felt the idea of honoring the tradition of the lei was declining.
Source: The Garden Island