If you don't know Verne Russell, then you might have not been around the club for too long. Verne is currently not in a very healthy state and we would like you to include him in your prayers and wish him well!

Verne was the original webmaster of our club's website and all that there is today displayed here we owe to him!

Below a little story that Verne told me when he handed over the website to me back in December 2008. He has done a tremendous amount of work to get HYC this website, many many long hours has he spent designing, taking pictures, editing, updating, etc.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Verne for all he did and would like to dedicate this new HYC website to him, Verne Russell, in memory of all the effort that he put into creating our first shot at a website!

Here the promised story about the origins of HYC's website:

"Verne Russell was in his first or second term as Commodore when he thought that the Hawaii Yacht Club Bulletin was a little bit out-dated and behind the times. It was a large" newspaper type" publication about the size of the inserts you see today on Newsprint paper. Bill Walters was the Editor and did a fine job for several years with this publication. Verne thought it was time to enter the modern world with a Magazine type format. Bill did not have a computer (I forgot to mention this was around 1998) and Bill was not interested in changing the format, in fact, he said he was looking for an excuse to retire from the Bulletin. I put out a plea for anyone who would be interested in becoming the Editor. There were a few responses, mostly people who did not have a computer or that knowledge.

Until Ellen Miller (works for Hagadone Printers) came forward and said she would give it a try. Good, we're off and running. Ellen worked on the format for several publications until she finally came up with what you saw as the Club Bulletin in its last publication by Ellen and Tony Miller. Now go back to a year or so after Ellen took over. Tony called Verne one day and said he had an idea. We should have a Website. He had paid for and reserved the name of hawaiiyachtclub.org with "Network Solutions" and since they (Tony and Ellen) had helped Verne out. It was about time someone stepped in and created a website for the club.

WELL NOW....wait just a cotton pickin moment... Verne did not know anything about websites...He did not even know where to begin. Tony assured him that it was not that difficult and so he agreed. Verne picked up "Front Page" (an early edition and updated later to Front page 2000) and started to work on designing a website.

Since then Verne had worked very hard to keep the website as updated as possible. But as time flew by, Verne was considering asking for relief from the website. For 2 years he was trying to find someone to take over. But at that time no one ever would consider it so Verne stayed with.

In December 2008 time had come, the website grew to more than Verne could deal with and he notified the Commodore that he was leaving the website. “Please, find someone to take my place.” And along came Christin Shacat.

I guess that is about the whole story of 10 maybe 11 years of an Old man's life, as Verne told me."