A Thing For Vegas
There’s a good reason why Kimo Akane’s columns, radio shows and Website are called ‘Kimo’s Vegas.’ If it’s happening in Las Vegas, Kimo knows all about it. Most of it he can talk about
By Lisa Asato
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All in the ohana: son Chase, daughters Suzette,
Minuette and Sunsette, son-in-law Takeichi Miyahira,
wife Ellen, Kimo and sister Clydette
the bright lights,” she says. “It’s just the general atmosphere. It’s getting away from everything.”
The couple visits Las Vegas as often as their schedules allow. This year, it’s only been twice, but some years they make five trips. They stay for about six days, and spend the first three at a Downtown hotel and the last three on the Strip.
They have four children, all of whom are offered a trip to Vegas for their 21st birthday. “My mother took me to Vegas when I was 21 ... and I really loved it,” Ellen says. “I told my children when they were old enough we’d take them too.”
It’s an additional birthday gift to them, she says. “It’s good for the whole year, whenever they want to go and are available.”
Last year they took their daughter Minuette. Next year it’ll be son Chase’s turn. That trip will coincide with a family reunion for Ellen’s side of the family, and it will be the first trip to Vegas that Akane and his entire family will take together. In addition to those already mentioned, there will also be daughter Sunsette and husband Tak Miyahira, and their child Ryden; and daughter Suzette and her fiancée, Ronald Libarios.
By the way, the family also has another tradition - that of giving girls names ending in “-ette.”
The practice was started by Akane’s mom, and then “everybody started doing that,” he says. “We’re not doing it anymore, but for a long time we did. Everybody, my aunts, my uncles, they all did it. I think it was a ploy to drive my grandmother (crazy).”
In his role as a consultant, Kimo confers with
Chris Hart, KKEA program/operations manager
He grew up Kimo Kaiuwailani in Punaluu and graduated from
Kahuku High School. At 18 he went straight to radio school in Los Angeles, and his first job in radio was at a Top 40 station in Las Vegas. “The call letters were K-E-N-O like the game, and I was ‘Kimo on KENO,’” he says.
But he didn’t plan to work in the Nevada desert. He says matter-of-factly, “I got on a Greyhound bus and it happened to be going to Las Vegas.”
Once in Vegas, Akane heard a familiar voice on the radio. It was Scott Edwards, who had worked at Hawaii’s KKUA, where Kimo used to hang out. “I called him up and said, ‘Hey, you remember me from Honolulu?’ He said come by ... He was coming back to Hawaii, so I took his job when he came back.”
A stint at a rock station followed, and about a year later, missing Hawaii, he was back home and on the air at K-108, where the name Akane was born. “It is Hawaiian, it is Japanese, and it kind of sounds like it could be Korean (covering his ethnic mix), so it’s a perfect name for Hawaii because everybody can kind of relate to it, yeah?
“I think in Hawaiian it means ‘to make noise,’ and in Japanese it means ‘red,’ and in Korean I don’t know what it means. Although everyone says ‘Aikane,’ so I don’t know how much good that did.”
In three decades of radio, Akane has held various jobs at KGU, KKUA and “the first Japanese tourist radio station called FM 99-5,” which broadcast from Dole Cannery. He’s been program director, on-air personality, music director and operations manager. His longest stint lasted 13 years at KQMQ, where he rose to become a vice president. “My big claim to fame was KQMQ,” he says. “I used to work with Michael Qseng, Wili Moku and Chris Hart. We had this massive huge radio station in the ‘80s.”
He’s even worked in TV, as an engineer for KHON and KGMB (thanks to an advanced license he earned at the Don Martin School of Broadcasting).
For the past 15 years, he’s been a radio consultant for various stations statewide. Cox Radio Hawaii hires him as a consultant for two of its six stations, KCCN FM100 and Hawaiian105 KINE.
When KCCN FM100 hit No. 1 in 1999, Akane gave program director Davey D. a copy of the book The Art of War
Of his Vegas-related work, Akane says, “It’s fun to do. It’s like some people collect stamps - I talk to people about Las Vegas.
“And people have told me some bizarre stories.”
He’s at work compiling them in a book that he hopes to release by next Christmas. And he’s putting a call out for more Las Vegas scoops. “If (anybody’s) got a story, they can e-mail me,” he says.
The address is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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