Charles Wai Hing Goo — a former BYU—Hawaii registrar, director of admissions, and associate dean of students — passed away peacefully at home on January 3, 2024, after a life rich in service to the university, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his family, former missionaries, Chinese students, and the community.
When he was just nine years old, his late father, Charles K.C. Goo, and mother, Mildred Y.K. Chun Goo, moved to Laie from Honolulu to operate the Old Plantation Store at the intersection of Lanihuli St. and Naniloa Loop. It had already served the community for decades when the senior Goo took it over in 1955 and also began to serve the new faculty and students then using the temporary campus of the Church College of Hawaii across the street (where the Laie Hawaii North Stake center is now located).
Charley, as practically everybody called him — even President Gordon B. Hinckley, graduated from Kahuku High and attended BYU until he was called to the Southern Far East Mission, Hong Kong, in 1965. He met CCH student Helen Shiu Kuen Kwong of Hong Kong shortly before leaving, and a year after he returned, they married in the Laie Hawaii Temple in 1969.
Completing graduate studies at BYU in 1972, which also included a U.S. Army ROTC commission, he and Helen lived in Germany for two years while he computerized payroll systems.
Returning to Hawaii, he did similar things for BYU–Hawaii, and during his 37-year career he was also involved with student counseling, recruitment, new student experience, international student assistance, and alumni relations.
From 1986–1989, Charley and Helen returned to Hong Kong where he was the mission president — and their lives ever after were marked by their many “missionary sons and daughters” who often visited the Goos in their beautiful home on the same corner where the Old Plantation Store once stood.
He retired from BYU–Hawaii in 2007 when he and Helen were called to preside over the Hong Kong Temple. They also served as senior missionaries in the Manhattan (New York City) Chinatown Ward from 2015–2017.
Back in Laie, Charley accepted a service missionary call as the BYU–Hawaii chaplain (who, among other things, assists nonmember students); and they were then called on a service mission back to Hong from 2019–2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic cut that mission short. Two years later, he was diagnosed with cancer.
Charley Goo’s funeral was held on January 25, 2024. He is survived by his beloved wife, Helen; five children: Charlene (Cody), Pleasant Grove, UT; Cheryl (Chris), Laie; Cherisse (Alfred), Laie; Spencer (Megan), Laie; and LeGrand (Crystal), Mililani; as well as 21 grandchildren, “each of whom has brought immeasurable joy to his life,” daughter Charlene said in his eulogy.
He is also survived by three sisters: Gerry (Ben) Nihipali, Laie; Cynthia (Clarence) Fong, Hawaii Kai; and Eloise (Jeff) Tyau, Laie; and he was preceded in death by his sister, Joann (Norrin) Lau, and his parents.
In his life so filled with service and sharing, perhaps it’s the more personal memories mentioned during his funeral that more fully show his humanity and aloha.
For example, in her eulogy, Charlene also told us how proud he was to be from Hawaii, to have grown up in Laie, and attend Kahuku High. “He was a true Red Raider for life” who delighted to see the accomplishments of his own children there, too, she added.
Charlene also recalled when he was bishop of the BYUH Third Ward, the Goos “would have the students over for family home evening every week. It was so much fun. I have these older brothers and sisters, many of whom we’re still in close contact with today. I learned to serve as I saw my dad give so much of his time and his love to the students. Many of them were far away from their own families, and he treated them as his own.”
Daughter Cheryl joked, “My dad is the only person I know who spoke Cantonese with kind of a pidgin accent.”
She also said, “One of the things that I learned from my dad is to love others. He looked past people's mistakes. He gave people second, third chances, fourth, fifth, me 100. He believed in them. That's how he lived his life.”