UH Hilo’s 2008 Distinguished Alumni and Service Awards banquet will be held on Friday, Feb. 29 at the Campus Center Dining Room. The event begins at 5 p.m. with no-host cocktails and a silent auction to raise scholarship funds.

This year’s Distinguished Alumni Awards recipients are (left to right): Robert Dircks, Hilo High principal; Gay Porter, Hilo branch manager of Business Insurance Services and president of General Insurance Association of Hilo and Hilo Rotary Club; and Hansen Tsang, owner of Mauna Kea Electric and pioneer in renewable energy technology.

This year’s Distinguished Service Award recipients are: (left to right top) Don Hemmes, UH Hilo professor of biology and president of the Mycological Society of America; John Farias, former member of the UH Board of Regents; George Martin (shown here in 1977), former Hawai‘i Division director and international vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; (and left to right above) the late Eddie De Mello (shown here in 1973), ILWU member, labor organizer and lobbyist; and Stanley I. Hara, former state senator and chair of senate education committee.

Martin, De Mello and Hara played instrumental roles in transforming the UH Hilo campus from a two-year institution to a four-year University of Hawai‘i at Hilo in 1971.

Tickets are $50 per person and $350 for a table of eight. RSVP deadline is Feb. 19. For more information, call 974-7643 or 974-7501.