Hilo-Born Congressman Ed Case to Deliver Fall Commencement Address

Hawaiʻi Congressman Ed Case will be the keynote speaker at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo Fall Commencement ceremony, to be held on Saturday, December 20 at 9:00 a.m. in the UH Hilo New Gym.

A total of 212 students representing the College of Arts and Sciences (189), College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management (15), and Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikolani College of Hawaiian Language (8) are candidates for degrees or certificates.

Case, born and raised in Hilo, attended Waiakea-Kai and Keaukaha Elementary Schools in Hilo and graduated from Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy in Waimea in 1970. He earned a bachelor of arts in psychology from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1975.

Following graduation, Case went to Washington D.C. where he spent the next three years (1975-1978) working for Hawaiʻi Congressman and U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga. Case later attended law school and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of California/Hastings College of Law in San Francisco in 1981.

He worked for nearly 20 years as an associate, partner, and managing partner with the Honolulu law firm of Carlsmith Ball. He also served as a law clerk for State Supreme Court Chief Justice William S. Richardson, and with Hawaiʻi‘s State Department of Labor.

His career as an elected public official began with his election to the Manoa Neighborhood Board in Honolulu where he served from 1985 to 1989. Case was elected to the State House of Representatives in 1994 where he served four two-year terms until November 2002.

As a state lawmaker, Case was recognized as "Legislator of the Year" by Honolulu Weekly in 1995, "New Economy Legislator of the Year" by the Hawaiʻi Technology and Trade Association in 2000, and "Legislator of the Year" by Small Business Hawaiʻi in 2000.

Case won a special election on November 30, 2002 to complete the unexpired term of the late Patsy Takemoto Mink in Hawaiʻi‘s 2nd Congressional District encompassing the neighbor islands and rural Oʻahu. On January 4, 2003, he won a second special election to serve the full, two-year term Mink was posthumously elected to in November.

He currently serves as a member of the committees on Education and the Workforce, Agriculture and Small Business. Case most recently traveled to Iraq and other Middle East countries as part of a congressional fact-finding delegation to assess U.S. reconstruction efforts in post-war Iraq.

Lisa Best, a philosophy major, will represent the graduating class as its student speaker. Raised in Alaska, Best graduated from Soldotna High School in 1997. She attended Kenai Peninsula College (KPC) from 1998-2000.

Best began her education at UH Hilo in 2000 and carries a 3.75 grade point average. She served three semesters as president of the UH Hilo Philosophical Society, four semesters as vice president of the Honors Club, and was a volunteer for the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in 2001 and 2002. Her commencement address will focus on the responsibility of graduates to share what they have learned at UH Hilo.

For more information on commencement, contact Jacquelyn Pualani Johnson at (808) 974-7304 or email at pualani@interpac.net. For special accommodations, contact Susan Shirachi at (808) 933-0816 (V) or (808) 974-7335 (TTY). Requests for special accommodations should be made at least 10 business days prior to the event.