Matlins create Lillian S. Hatate Scholarship for UH student-athletes

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Margot Schrire, (808) 956-6774
Director of Communications, UH Foundation
Posted: Oct 23, 2015

Lillian S. Hatate
Lillian S. Hatate

UH Athletics Director David Matlin and his wife, Dana, have pledged $35,000 to create the Lillian S. Hatate Scholarship Endowment. This scholarship will support full-time student-athletes participating in intercollegiate sports on any sports team at UH Mānoa who are pursuing a degree in Education.

The scholarship is named in memory of Dana Matlin’s mother, Lillian Shigeko Hatate, who died in 2012 at the age of 81. Hatate was born in Honolulu to Japanese immigrants. Throughout her life, she knew that education was key to building a successful life both for herself and her three younger siblings. Although her father left high school to work on a dairy farm, he believed strongly in the value of a good education and reminded her that it was the one thing in life that no one can ever take away from you.

Hatate graduated from Roosevelt High and obtained her bachelor’s degree in Education from UH Mānoa. She then earned her master’s in Education from the University of Iowa, where she met her husband, Raymond Hatate, also a Hawai‘i student who was working on his physical therapy degree in Iowa.

She went on to teach at the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade level at several Oahu elementary schools before settling on her permanent teaching home at Aina Haina Elementary, where she eventually retired after 25 years of service educating Hawai‘i’s youth. Even when she was not in the classroom, Lillian remained committed to teaching and molding her two children, Mark and Dana, and her five grandchildren.

“We are so pleased to be able to carry forward my mother’s legacy and commitment toward higher education and that we can help support another proud University of Hawai‘i student who shares that same dream,” said Dana Matlin.

Added David Matlin, "Lillian was an incredibly special person, and teaching was how she changed Hawai‘i and her family for the better.  On a personal note, Lillian encouraged me to return to school to get my MBA upon moving to Hawai‘i in 1993 and my Shidler (College of Business) education has been a difference maker for me."

To find out how you can support the UH Mānoa Athletics program, contact Associate Athletics Director Philanthropic Partnerships Kimo Kai at (808) 956-4322 or Kimo.Kai@uhfoundation.org. You can also make a gift online at www.uhfoundation.org/givetoathletics

       

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The University of Hawai‘i Foundation, a nonprofit organization, raises private funds to support the University of Hawai‘i System. The mission of the University of Hawai‘i Foundation is to unite donors’ passions with the University of Hawai‘i’s aspirations by raising philanthropic support and managing private investments to benefit UH, the people of Hawai‘i and our future generations. www.uhfoundation.org.

For more information, visit: www.uhfoundation.org