Eleanor Kaloi Dalton: CCH’s first yearbook editor
Eleanor Kaloi Dalton, 87, came from a very large family in Hilo, Island of Hawaii, in 1955 to join Church College of Hawaii’s inaugural class as a business education major, and soon became editor of the new school’s first yearbook, Nā Hoa Pono, as well as the student body secretary-historian.
She recalled Dr. Richard Wootton, her religion teacher, was also the yearbook advisor, and a friend of hers from Hilo, the late Bruce Meyers, was one of the yearbook photographers.
“As editor, I oversaw everything. We worked in the business classroom in a Quonset hut, and since I knew how to work most of the machines in there, we used the typewriters to do our captions and so forth for the yearbook. Our first yearbook [in 1956] was 74 pages long.”
“Because the campus and the student body were small, we kind of knew everybody,” she continued, adding she stayed in the nearby historic Lanihuli House with some of the other coeds, including her best friend, Roselani Aina from Hilo. “We called her by her Hawaiian name, Noe.” By the way, they’re still good friends, and Roselani still lives in Hilo.
“We also knew the boys at Kekela Dorm [located in what is now Kokololio Beach Park], and we sometimes got together to eat.”
During her second year at CCH, Eleanor was editor of the student newspaper, even then named Ke Alaka‘i, with the late Jerry K. Loveland as the advisor, and also served as the student body secretary-treasurer. Because CCH was originally a two-year school, after her sophomore year, Eleanor attended the University of Hawaii but soon transferred to BYU in Provo, where she changed her major to elementary education and graduated. Her first teaching job took her to Delta, Utah, where she eventually married, and the couple raised their family. In addition to teaching upper elementary school, Eleanor became the principal of the middle school there.
“I worked until 2000, and then I became a full-time grandma and great-grandma,” she said. “Delta was a small town but a great community,” she added. “We knew everybody and most of them were supportive.” She also thinks she was the first Hawaiian to live there. But 69 years ago, after graduating from Hilo High School, Eleanor remembers CCH was a “good place to get a higher education. Actually, most of us never thought we would go to college because we had no money,” she said.
Still, she remembers those days as a time she was almost on her own and had to make decisions about her life. “Our church leaders, including the ones in Hilo before we left, would say to us, ‘Remember, you’ll be in the shadows of the temple, that you respect where you are, and that you respect yourselves.’ That was very good advice, and we tried to stay on the straight and narrow.” Of her fellow CCH students, Eleanor said, “I thought we did quite well as a group, those that I knew from Hilo and other places. I’m thankful that I had my start at the Church College of Hawaii because of the spirit that was there, the opportunities I had to take part in the student activities, and the ability to use that school experience to go to BYU in Provo.”
After recently visiting the BYU–Hawaii campus, Eleanor added, “I think it’s a wonderful facility, and I hope the students who go there now are appreciative of the learning they get, their relationships with people, and being in the shadows of the temple.”
