The Japanese Community Association of Hawaii will hold the 80th Ireisai Hoyo Memorial Service at ‘Alae Cemetery in Hilo on Sunday, Aug. 25, at 2 p.m. The annual observance was initiated by the late territorial Sen. Sanji Abe, who had the 14-foot, 7-and-one-half-inch marble monument cast in Japan in August of 1938. The memorial was dedicated in Hawai‘i a year later, on Aug. 20, 1939. The Kona-born Abe served with the Hawai‘i County Police Department for 20 years and became the first senator of Japanese ancestry elected to Hawai‘i’s territorial Legislature.
