From a sweetly penned rap song to creating a home while trotting the globe, some prominent Maui couples have found, celebrated and shared love in unique ways.
With Valentine’s Day upon us, The Maui News asked four couples to share their stories about their beginnings and unions – from a last-minute elopement to a surprise wedding at a first birthday party.
Featured are Second Circuit Judge Rhonda Loo and Maui Police Department Detective Wendell Loo; Imua Family Services Executive Director Dean Wong and David Ward, Seabury Hall’s director of dance; Maui Thing co-owner Ashley Takitani Leahey and broadcaster Kanoa Leahey; and Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang and his wife, Kathy.
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Dr. Lorrin & Kathy Pang: ‘He kind of stood out’
By CHRIS SUGIDONO, Staff Writer
Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang has become something of a celebrity for his expertise in epidemiology and tropical medicine.
His knowledge and involvement with hot-button issues including dengue fever, genetically modified organisms and sugar cane burning have thrust him into the spotlight in recent years.
So, who is he married to?
“He’s something else,” said his wife, Kathy.
The Pangs, both 62 years old, have been married for 35 years. They have two daughters, Selena and Genevieve, and spent roughly 20 years living overseas because of Dr. Pang’s job with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research – the largest and most diverse biomedical research laboratory in the U.S. Department of Defense.
“It was a weird nomadic life, but it was kind of exciting,” Kathy Pang said. “It was always what he wanted to do.”
The couple met while working as camp counselors on Oahu. She immediately knew he was different; he was smart, creative, fun and creatively engaged with the “scores and scores of kids” under a “fireman’s schedule.”
“I guess he kind of stood out,” she said.
After getting married, the couple spent most of their time living in Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro and Geneva. Dr. Pang would conduct field studies in several countries at a time, while she looked after their children.
“Sometimes I’d be cooking, and he’d tell me what he’s doing and it goes in one ear and out the other,” she said jokingly. “I know, it was bad. Sometimes I didn’t know exactly where he was because he’d have to go off to an outbreak to investigate.”
When he retired from the military around 2001, the couple moved to Maui, where he took a job with the state Department of Health. He has become known for expressing his personal opinion on issues as a citizen, as well as separately as state officer.
Kathy Pang has a doctorate in physiology, and she said she is not an activist at heart and does not get involved with debates over GMOs and other issues. But she talks with her husband about his work.
“He doesn’t back down from something,” she said. “When it comes down to the science, he will stay consistent with it. That’s his strength.”
When asked what has kept them together for so long, she pointed to their common values, mutual respect and their ability to make each other laugh.
“We certainly are well-suited for each other,” she said.
* Chris Sugidono can be reached at csugidono@mauinews.com.
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Dean Wong & David Ward: Nuptials a gift to son
By MELISSA TANJI, Staff Writer
A black-and-white affair on the grounds of Seabury Hall didn’t raise an eyebrow for friends and relatives of Dean Wong and David Ward, who thought they were just guests for the couple’s son’s first birthday.
The Kula pair is known for putting on formal events. So the red linens and long-stem red roses did not give it away that they would tie the knot – or at the time officially form a union – at what was just supposed to be a birthday celebration.
“As soon as I said it, there was this cheer and applause . . . I didn’t expect that kind of enthusiasm and response. I thought people would be ‘that’s so nice,'” said Wong, who is the executive director of Imua Family Services and has worked for other Maui nonprofit organizations.
“You could hear people were just vocally responding. You could hear people crying . . . I was really kind of taken back by that,” Wong recalled of the reaction he and Ward received after announcing they were getting married.
“This was our gift to our son,” Wong said of the nuptials. “It was to demonstrate this commitment . . . for the rest of our lives to be there for him.”
Wong didn’t think about the type of reaction he would receive when announcing the couple’s present to son Valentino during the party on the grounds of Seabury Hall, where Ward has been director of the dance program for 28 years.
Wong, now 51, and Ward, now 56, held their 2012 ceremony because civil unions for same-sex couples were legal in Hawaii. With the law in their favor, the two secretly planned their union on their son’s first birthday, Sept. 21. The following year, same-sex marriages were legalized in the state.
Wong said that the union was not for political reasons but for the same set of ideals that same-sex couples get married for, such as their commitment to family and children.
But “I never believed growing up (that) I would be able to get married in my lifetime,” Wong said.
Today is the anniversary of the couple’s first date, which was on Feb. 14, 2008, at Haliimaile General Store.
Valentine’s Day has played a big role in Wong’s life and led to naming their son, Valentino, who is now 4 1/2 years old.
Wong had a dream on a Valentine’s Day long before he met Ward that he would have a son. The couple learned on Valentine’s Day five years ago that they would be parents to a boy.
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.
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Kanoa & Ashley Takitani Leahey: First date had a rap
By MELISSA TANJI, Staff Writer
Ashley Takitani Leahey couldn’t believe her ears when she heard her name over Kanoa Leahey’s truck stereo.
It was their first real date, the two had gone out together but with groups of friends – never alone.
“I was in the (truck). (It) had been a few minutes; we were kind of talking, making small talk. All of a sudden I heard my name first. I don’t think I knew it was his voice. I think that’s what caught my ear (hearing Ashley). I listened and waited.”
“‘This sounds like your voice,'” said Takitani Leahey, part-owner of Maui Thing, while turning to Leahey, who was then sports director at KHON 2 on Oahu.
“He kind of like nervously smiled and gave me this weird look. I though ‘Uh oh.'”
“I kept listening. He had written me a rap,” the 29-year-old recalled. “It was unique. It was a rap about me.”
The name is Ashley
Stylish and sassy
No questioning that she’s who the catch be . . .
Better gets greater every time we hang
Oahu townie meets Miss Maui Thang
Yet everything has its obstacles
Water between us some people say that’s impossible
Still I find myself thinking what comes next
Warm with anticipation with every text
Takitani Leahey, who was living on Maui, said she was caught completely off guard by the Oahu resident’s rap back on their date in the summer of 2010. She was on Oahu for work.
But she confessed that the rap did not send her head over heels – yet – over the now-38-year-old Leahey, a local broadcast star, whose father, Jim, and late grandfather, Chuck, were also stars on the radio and then on television.
“I thought it was really sweet. . . . I think because of the rap, I was more excited about dinner,” she said.
Now, the couple resides in Waikapu. Leahey does play-by-play announcing for several University of Hawaii teams and has a radio show with Pacific Media Group. He does the “Leahey and Leahey” television show with his father.
Takitani Leahey handles marketing, innovation and project development at Sae Design in Wailuku.
The two met in spring 2010 on Maui during the Willie K Charity Golf Tournament. They were introduced by organizer Karey Oura Kapoi. Leahey had Willie K perform when he proposed at the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa. He also played at their wedding, Takitani Leahey said.
They tied the knot on April 25, 2014, at St. Anthony Church in Wailuku and had another ceremony for more family and friends the next day at the Maui Tropical Plantation.
“We attribute it all to Willie K and Karey Kapoi. It’s their fault.”
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.
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Wendell & Rhonda Loo: Sentenced to life
By CHRIS SUGIDONO, Staff Writer
Maui police Detective Wendell Loo and 2nd Circuit Court Judge Rhonda Loo are a criminal justice system power couple. One puts criminals in handcuffs and the other sends them to jail.
While the couple has been married for nearly 20 years, it almost never happened.
“We eloped on a bet,” Rhonda said.
Rhonda, 54, a prosecutor at the time, had been dating Wendell, 52, for about five years when they decided to get hitched in 1997. She wanted a small wedding with only immediate family, and he wanted multiple weddings with “everyone and their mother” and “most of Maui County” invited, she said.
“He didn’t want to budge, and I didn’t want to give in,” she said.
The couple continued to argue until Rhonda applied for a Maui County prosecutor’s office law seminar at Lake Tahoe. Doubtful that she would be selected, she made the bet.
“This is the deal: If I get to go on the seminar, let’s go ahead and elope,” she recalled telling her now-husband.
It did not take long for her to be selected, and the couple quickly made arrangements. Only Wendell’s sister and two of his friends knew about and attended the wedding.
“He did all the arrangements,” she said. “Usually it’s the girl that does it all, but he was so excited. I was the one who was like, ‘Oh crap.'”
After returning home from the wedding and seminar, Rhonda discovered she was to be interviewed for the district judge courtship. She had only two days to prepare, but she landed the job and begin her career as a judge.
“It was a great year for me,” she said, adding that the couple also got their first of several German shepherd puppies. “I’m so happy because we were arguing about this for many months, and I thought we were never going to marry.”
She said they have an “interesting relationship” with their “funky schedules” and careers. She said they joke about when they’ll finally have their big wedding, but call their elopement “the best thing we ever did.”
“It was one of the best days of my entire life,” she said.
* Chris Sugidono can be reached at csugidono@mauinews.com.
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