The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 2

A2 Sunday, January 21, 1996 The Honolulu Advertiser Ilia Bowl: Game survives attrition, competition FROM PAGE ONE Hula Bowl through the years Number of fans Crowd size, 1976-1 SC5 50,000 40,000 'ri 30,000 voice of Notre Dame football and national radio broadcaster calling the play-by-play for today's Hula Bowl. "It is truly the only game in town." This event dismantled just 15 months ago has survived another year and is fiscally sound to the year 2000, says Lenny Klompus. But do Oahu residents give a hoot? Seats half empty If numbers were letters, the Hula Bowl's recent attendance would spell the game's demise. A game that once was on every college player's wish list and drew near-capacity crowds in the 1960s and 70s now struggles to fill up half of the Aloha Stadium. I I 1 I I I I I I I I I I TT mr frM'il'JA oha Bow initiated "ProBowl jHawa i Pono'l AilSare iT Jjmfr -T" Charles White, 1930 I 20,000 10,000 Advertiser file photo1971 The 1971 Hula Bowl game drew mega-stars at quarterback.

From left, they are Joe Theisman of Notre Dame, Jim Plunkett of Stanford and Rex Kern of Ohio State. 0U 1 I I I I I t- I I I I I I I I I Year 76 '77 78 79 '80 '81 '82 '83 '84 '85 '86 '87 '88 '89 '90 '91 '92 '93 '94 '95 1947: Hula Bowl begins, with College All-Stars playing the Hawaii All-Stars. 1980-74: Hula Bowl played at Honolulu Stadium 1975: Hula Bowl moves to Aloha Stadium. 1978: 45,458 attend. 1977: 45,579 attend.

1978: 48,197 attend. 1979: 49,132 attend. 1980: 47,096 in attendance and Heisman winner Charles White, running back from University of Southern California. 1980: NFL Pro Bowl moves from Mainland to Honolulu. 1981: Attendance drops to 39,456, even with Heisman winner George Rogers, running back from University of South Carolina.

1982: Aloha Bowl is initiated; Hula Bowl draws 43,002 with Heisman winner Marcus Allen, running back from USC. 1984: Attendance drops to 26,829. No Heisman winner. 1985: 25,890 attend. Heisman winner Doug Flutie, quarterback of Boston College.

1986: 20,943 attend. 1987: Attendance has slowly declined to 17,775. No Heisman winner. 1988: Attendance climbs to 26,737. Heisman winner Tim Brown, flanker from Notre Dame, plays; and Oceanic Cable kicks in $100,000 for post-game Beach Boys concert 1989: Attendance climbs again to 28,896.

No Heisman winner. Oceanic Cable again helps to put on Beach Boys concert. 1990: Attendance drops to 20,274. No The wane in attendance can be clearly traced to three factors: The NFL's Pro Bowl moved from the Mainland to Aloha Stadium in 1980. The following early 1980s.

The last Heisman winner to play the Hula Bowl was Notre Dame's Tim Brown in 1988. Says Mackay Yanagisawa, the Hula Bowl's founder, the Aloha vear. attendance at tne nuia Bowl droDDed from 47.096 to Bowl's co-founder and the per- Heisman winner. Willie Nelson replaces the Beach Boys. 1991: Attendance drops to 18,172.

No Heisman winner. No Willie Nelson or Beach Boys. 1992: 23,112 attend. 1993: 25.479 attend. 1994: NBC drops its telecast.

ESPN picks it up. Charitable contribution goes from $264,584 to $11,000. Attendance climbs to 33,947 because the game pits Hawaii Pono'i all-stars against 39,456, the first year the game son responsible for bringing the Clipped below near capacity. Pro Bowl to Hawaii: "In any "I think the Pro Bowl, quite kind of sports attraction you honestly, has everything to do have to have the stars. People with (the Hula Bowl's de- come to see the stars, they want cline)," says Chris Dey, former to see the superstars." assistant director of the Hula Bowl.

"That's the year atten- Tourjsm nromo reSCUGfJ rianro fnii nff thp shelf." 1 ouri5m pimo dance fell off the shelf." Mainland college all-stars. TV Nielsen rating is a low .910. 1 995: Kodak completes its contract and does not renew. Lenny and Marcia Klompus take over running the Hula Bowl. Hooters Restaurant becomes sponsor, ESPN remains as TV sponsor.

East-West all-star format returns. Attendance dips to 19,074. TV Nielsen rises to 2.3. Operating expenses are cut from about $700,000 to $442,528. 1996: Hula Bowl celebrates its 50th game.

It has a TV sponsor contract with ESPN, Hooters Restaurant sponsor and National Radio contract through the year 2000. More than 21 ,000 advance tickets sold. WHAT: 50th Hooters Hula Bowl All-Star Football Classic. WHEN: Hula Bowl AlumniNFL Legends game 2 p.m.; Hula Bowl 3 p.m. today.

WHERE: Aloha Stadium. TICKETS: $15 for sidelines between 30-yard lines; $10 (or sidelines between 30 and goal lines; $7.50 for south end zone, $5 for north end zone. TV: Blacked out in Hawaii. RADIO: KCCN-FM. PREGAME: Honolulu Touch Tackle "Tropical Bowl" Championship, 12:35 p.m.

to 1:55 p.m. HEISMAN: Gates open 1 p.m. Those who enter may be able to take a picture with the Heisman Trophy on a first-come, first-served basis from 1-2 p.m. between gates 2 and 3. After NBC television and Eastman Kodak Co.

severed their sponsorship ties to the Hula Bowl in 1993 and '94, respectively, the game appeared AIL-STAR FOOTBALL CLASSIC Source: National Collegiate Athletic Association, ESPN, Hula Bowl to nave a snowball's chance in August of surviving. The University of Hawaii Foundation, once the game's organizer, feared a financial de Aloha Bowl. Lenny Klompus agreed to help, but promised to only keep Hawaii's first big sporting event alive long enough to see age 50. Now, Klompus promises he'll keep it breathing to age 51. And the bowl's radio, TV and corporate contracts all extend to the millennium.

$400 14-karat gold ring anchored by a pinhead-size diamond, Klompus says this year's operating expenses should be similar to 1995. Former Hula Bowl executive director Ray Nagel laughs and says the numbers might need checking. Klompus says he's not scrimping on quality. Over three nights, players were taken on a dinner cruise, an all-you-can-eat feast at Hooters aid, there is no more flak over Hooters as a sponsor. When a bureaucratic fuss brewed last year over the bowl's association with Hooters a restaurant chain flaunting waitresses clad in skimpy shorts and tight T-shirts -Klompus declined further tax money.

It now gets zero from the state, even though ESPN provides $150,000 worth of tourism publicity for Hawaii. How did Klompus replace 'Go to the Senior Bowl, go to the Senior Bowl because the NFL coaches are there. "Hey, they've seen what I can do all year long, and they'll see again Sunday. It's the only game on TV and people are going to be watching all over the country." Best 2 out of 3 ESPN would like to see Aloha Stadium full for the 3 p.m. bacle and the game loose Klompus cided to last fall.

The Aloha Bowl premiered at Aloha Stadium in 1982, annually pitting two top college teams against each other in late December, eventually finding a home on Christmas Day. The Hula Bowl's attendance fell again, dropping to 26,829 in 1984. Meanwhile, more than 41,000 fans watched Southern Methodist University beat Notre Dame in the '84 Aloha Bowl. I "You have three bowl games in a row now," says Dey. TYou're bound to have people (who) go to one and not the Others." Fearing injury, some player agents steer marquee college players clear of post-season games.

Others are advised to play in just one all-star game. And the East-West Shrine Classic in Palo Alto, the Blue-Gray All-Star Classic in Montgomery, and the Senior Bowl, which is coached by NFL coaches, in Mobile, are all played before the Hula Bowl. "If you're a player and I'm fc'our agent, I'm going to tell you that we're only going to fhow you off a little bit but no taore" says Roberts of West-JvardMutual Radio. "We're not Jjoing to risk getting you hurt." The Hula Bowl almost always landed the Heisman Tro-hhy winner in the 1960s and 70s, and several times in the and a steak banquet; they each the kickoff but nopes for some- Want to see the soles of my get the NCAA limit of $50 per thing close to half of capacity. shoes?" he asks.

"Sponsorships, diem; and stylish Hula Bowl Last year a smattering of fans The state suddenly saw a promotional coup fading. "Television exposure is always positive this time of year," says Jack Wiers, then the head of sports promotions for Hawaii's Business, Economic Development Tourism Department. "You have people in short sleeves in Hawaii watching football in sunshine while a third of the nation is blanketed under snowfalL" Last year's game drew a 2.3 started a wave and it petered Expenses cut back The Hula Bowl came with baggage, and Klompus inherited an expense schedule that was in excess of $700,000 in 1994 about $300,000 more than it cost him to put on the 1994 Aloha Bowl, he says. With the help of his Aloha Bowl staff, the addition of three others and countless volunteers, Klompus cut the Hula shirts given to everyone volunteers included are 100 percent combed cotton. Syracuse University wide receiver Marvin Harrison isn't complaining.

Sitting oceanside in Waikiki on Thursday, he ate out halfway around the stadium. Wiers says the Hula Bowl has the makings to survive a long time. "You need three major components for a successful sporting event," he says. "Title sponsor- I walked the streets and just worked really hard." Auto Value Parts Stores is a new sponsor this year and is helping pay for a half-time show featuring The National Performance Team of cheerleaders and dancers from Dallas. AH told, Klompus estimates today's halftime should cost around $50,000, but the Hula Bowl is paying about $1,500.

And despite bringing 18 Hula Bowl alumni back to Hawaii last week and giving each a last year to Nielsen rating, seen by more iJowi expenses a barbecue chicken sandwich, palmed a cold Sprite, and said than ,1.4 million of ESPN's 64 $442,528. There are no more blank he was just' happy to be out of ship, TV and the third the East Coast cold. would be attendance. million viewers. But three months earlier, there was no corporate sponsor, no TV sponsor, no organizer.

Wiers called Lenny and Marcia Klompus, who also run the checks at the hotel for players to eat on and no more post-game concerts with the Beach Boys and Willie Nelson. And, after ditching $100,000 in state "I had my choice of all-star bowls," said Harrison, a projected first-round NFL draft choice, "Everyone was saying "Well, they've, got two of the three." Knock, knock, Honolulu. Anybody there? Donna: Against all odds, father finds abducted daughter: FROM PAGE ONE it 1 From left to right, an age-progression "morph" of a childhood photo of Donna Kempton made by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to approximate what she might look like at age 46, David Kempton and Barbara Pyne-Kempton in the 1940s, Donna's brother, Steven, in a recent portrait mother's belongings. The name on it was not the one she palled her own. i Who was Donna Rae Kempton? private heartache Few knew David Kempton's private heartache.

He is a careful man, his Jvorld lathed by a long career es a machinist In his workshop beneath feilger Hall on the University fcf Hawaii-Manoa campus, form follows function. Here, Kempton carves out scientific instruments for the Chemistry Department, precisely and cleanly. But Donna Rae Kempton was never far from his mind. Mere mention of the name "Donna" conjured images of a cheeky toddler. Sometimes, he thought of her mother, Barbara.

"She was my first love," he said. Kempton was in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1946, tationed in Calcutta, a long urav from his hometown of "I really think they have waited all these years for the FBI to show up at their door and arrest them for kidnapping." Instead, it's going to be Roe who knocks on their front, door. Her parents do not watch "Unsolved Mysteries," she said. "This is going to be a big shock to my mother," Roe said.

"Hopefully it will bring some relief to her. I don't know if Chuck even knows I know he Is not my real father." She has never pressed her mother for reasons, even for the one question that still gnaws at her. "I have always wondered how my mother could live with the fact that she left a kid behind," Roe said. "She has known for 42 years that she has had a son out there." Normal childhood Roe grew up in Northern California and said her childhood was normal. Barbara joined the PTA and was always there when Donna and her half-sister came home from school.

"Chuck" was a machinist, a strict, but fair parent. "I never felt unloved by him," Roe said. "His love was always special to me because I have always known he didn't have to love me." Today Barbara and Charles both in their 70s live under an assumed last name. Roe refuses to reveal that last name or where they live. She won't talk about her half-sister, either.

She also refuses to allow her picture to be taken, worried that the publicity will adversely affect her parents and her business she owns The Travel Shoppe in nearby Los Gatos. But she hates the morphed photograph. when he returned to Barbara's home, the place was empty. He didn't call the police. A private detective all but laughed at him.

"She was a war bride with no connections in this country," Kempton said. "Her boyfriend was an avowed itinerant, so there was no way to trace them even if I had the resources." Kempton would re-marry, raising Steven and three new children as best he could. But he was a wounded man. "For a long time, inside, I was an emotional mess," Kempton said. In 1970, he moved his family to Hawaii, where he now lives with his third wife.

Over time, as memories of Donna grew dimmer, Kempton clung to a black and white photograph he had taken of her and Steven during the girl's fourth birthday party. Just a few weeks before she vanished. Photograph 'morphed' Anne Clarkin, coordinator for the Hawaii State Clearinghouse on Missing Children, took on the Kempton case in April 1995. Kempton's plight moved Clarkin, the sole employee of this low-budget, high-tech operation in the state Attorney General's Office. She wanted an age-progression specialist at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to "morph" the last photograph Kempton had of Donna, who by now would be 46.

Clarkin also hoped she could get the case featured on the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." Success was a long shot of epic proportions. Even though a special computer program is used, there is some artistic license involved because no software "I think it is totally off base," she said. "My eyes ae further apart. My face is thinner. I don't have such a high forehead.

All my friends say I am much better looking than this picture." i I Talks to daughter Two days after "Unsolved Mysteries" featured David Kempton and his precious photograph, he was talking to his daughter. It was difficult and wonderful. 1 The voice he had forgotten had long since changed and his little girl was no longer a tow-headed cherub. She had grown up without him, but he was never far from her thoughts. They blamed no one, "Apparently, this whole thing has weighed very heavily on Barbara all these years," Kempton said.

"I told Donna that I would like her to tell her mother I bear her no grudge. I would hope that would lift some of that burden." Kempton told Roe to call her brother, Steven, a restaurant manager in Midland, Texas. Last Monday, the siblings bridged a 42-year gap with nervous laughter and kind words. The boy in the photo had grown up without her had spent his life trying to forget memories that always hurt him. He blamed no one, though.

Not anymore. "Mom did what she thought she had to do, what she thought was right at the time," he said, "The important thing is we move forward and that we live for today." That means a reunion, a thought that makes him pause. "Hopefully, my mom will want to get to know me again." Right there on her TV screen was the biggest shock of her life. She didn't know who that older woman was the one in the "morphed" image but she knew the 4-year-old with the blonde bangs and the kitten. She had seen that photo years ago.

Only a handful of people maybe six ever have. Inside of a minute, she telephoned her sister, Donna Rae Roe, who lives nearby in San Jose, "No way, no way, no way, this can't be," Roe kept telling her husband as "Unsolved Mysteries" aired a re-enactment of her abduction and an interview with David Kempton. But it was true. There on her TV screen was the man Roe had wondered about since she was 17 years old. Her real father.

She never expected this would happen. It had taken 10 years before she could even find the courage ask her mother about the baptismal certificate. The story that spilled out turned a long drive into a three-hour confession. "I had always put off looking for him because I always thought I had to protect Barbara and Charles," Roe said. can take a child's face 42 years into the future.

The rendering took two days. Almost immediately, Clarkin started showing the "aged" photo, hoping to get enough publicity to convince "Unsolved Mysteries" to feature Kempton. "Unsolved Mysteries" aired Donna Rae Kempton's story on the night of Jan. 12, flashing images of her "new" face and that birthday party photo. Her father stood vigil over the telephone from 3 to 8 p.m.

while the show was broadcast in time zones across the country. The show's producers had told Kempton to expect instant results. By 8:15 p.m., they called to say they were wrong. Kempton wasn't surprised. "I am a pretty cautious individual," he said.

"I thought they might be trying to put a positive face on it I didn't really think it would happen that way. "Still when it didn't, part of me was a little disappointed." Fifteen minutes later, they called back. 'Unsolved Mysteries' Donna Roe's half sister spit a cherry tomato across the kitchen when "Unsolved Mysteries" opened its show. Cleveland, Ohio. I He met Barbara Pyne at a tlance.

She was exotic, a Eurasian woman from Burma. They were married on Valentine's Day 1946. By spring, they had moved to Cleveland. Their first child was a boy, Steven; 2i years later, Donna Arrived. The marriage lasted until New Year's Eve 1952.

Barbara had fallen in love with an itinerant factory worker named Charles Semmler. i Kempton received custody of jiis children. Barbara got Visitation rights. It was a Friday when Kempton dropped Donna off for her first visit- On Sunday, I.