Ka `Upena -- Hawaii's first online newspaper -- was born in 1995. It was the second incarnation of a news summary service established by the University of Hawai`i over two years earlier.

Growing from a short dispatch (posted only to the university's now-defunct gopher server), Ka `Upena is now sent via e-mail to over a thousand subscribers, as well as distributed via USENET and published on the World Wide Web. It, along with several other online publications, is now distributed via The Hawai`i NewsList.

Like its predecessor, Ka `Upena is the work of a single volunteer. In it's heyday, I somehow managed to invest two to three hours a day assembling each issue, including up to ten in-depth articles and a handful of news briefs. It was published, almost without fail, every weekday.

Since then, I have served as editor of two of the university's student newspapers -- first at the Hilo campus and then at Manoa -- and subsequently started my own short-lived publication with some colleagues in August 1997. I am still working toward my degree in journalism, meanwhile serving as webmaster for several campus departments. And most recently, in January 1998, I became a father.

I've been busy, to say the least. Thus, Ka `Upena has only been published sporadically -- rarely weekly and sometimes not even monthly. While I have vowed to publish whenever I can, it surely hasn't been frequent enough for many readers.

I want to make sure former Hawai`i residents and Hawai`i-lovers have an easy way to keep up with the news of the islands, without having to wait for the next edition of Ka `Upena or fumbling through complicated websites.

Therefore, I'm proud to unveil the LeahiNet News gateway. In addition to serving as the new home for Ka `Upena, this simple framed web page makes it easy for readers to jump quickly to the latest stories from more than a dozen news sources. One bookmark -- http://www.leahi.net/news/ -- now does the work of several.

I hope this gateway helps soothe that constant longing for a taste of Hawai`i. If you have any comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to write.

Sincerely,

Ryan Kawailani Ozawa
Coordinator, The Hawai`i NewsList

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