29/09/2026
In 2007, the state froze its spending. The school in Hāna still had teams to send out.
Hāna is a town of about 1,500 people at the end of a 52-mile road from Kahului. About 620 curves. 59 bridges, 46 of them one lane wide.
The man up the road had been a lot of things before Hāna. A general's son from Brownsville, Texas. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. An Army captain who flew helicopters. A janitor at Columbia's studio in Nashville, sweeping floors.
Then the songs came. Me and Bobby McGee. Help Me Make It Through the Night. A Golden Globe for A Star Is Born. The Highwaymen, with Cash, Willie and Waylon.
In 1990, Kris Kristofferson moved his wife Lisa and their young children to the far end of that road. "It reminds me of where I grew up in Brownsville, Texas. It's like coming home."
At Hāna's school, they were parents like everybody else. "They are regular parents who helped out a lot," said Rick Paul, then the principal. Lisa drove the kids and chaperoned years of overnight trips. She taught mock trial for 15 years and took the tiny school all the way to the state competition.
In 2007, during that spending freeze, Lisa organized a concert at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, and her husband played it. It raised $40,000 for Hāna's athletic department, Honolulu Civil Beat reported.
Then it got harder. In the belt tightening that followed, the state Department of Education cut its athletics budget by 30 percent, about $4 million, Hawaii News Now later reported. Two years after the first concert, another concert and a silent auction raised $27,000 more for Hāna athletics and other school expenses.
They gave in other ways too. "They bought the high school computers, wrote checks for fundraisers," Paul said.
Rich Young, the vice principal and former athletic director, described the rest. "Most of what they did was anonymous. Airline miles for sick kids and their families."
By then the words had been slipping for years. Doctors treated Kris for Alzheimer's. In February 2016, a blood test found Lyme disease instead, and much of the old Kris came back.
On February 24, 2017, Kristofferson walked onstage at the same Kahului theater for another benefit, this one for Na Keiki O Emalia, a grief support group for children. Its founder, Brooke Brown, told Lisa it sounded like they were not going home with any money. Lisa said that was right. They even gave the charity the CD sale money.
A sold-out crowd gave him a standing ovation as he walked on. Hāna made the four-hour round trip to be there: two former principals, the current principal, the vice principal, teachers, school bus drivers, a ranch hand, and the mechanic who keeps Lisa's cars running.
Kris Kristofferson died at home in Hāna on September 28, 2024, with his family around him. He was 88. That was two years ago today.
Kris and Lisa gave airline miles to Hāna's sick kids. Hāna kept him home for 34 years.
His ʻohana's statement ended with a rainbow. When you see one, they wrote, know he is smiling down at us all.
Hāna High and Elementary still teaches the town's children, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, at the end of that same road.
The miles came with no name. The school still stands.
