Kauai Museum Lei Day draws crowds, honors contest winners

Tammy Nishimoto walked away with three special awards in the annual Irmalee and Walter Pomroy Lei Contest, but the bigger scene at the Kauai Museum was the crowd that kept moving through tables lined with lei in Līhue.

Hundreds of people flowed through the museum courtyard to view and bid on entries during the May 1 Lei Day observance, continuing a tradition that has become both a showcase and a market for Kauai’s lei makers. The contest required each entry to use natural plant materials only, a rule that keeps the craft rooted in island-grown materials and the hands-on skills that families, florists and other makers still rely on during graduations, weddings and visitor season. All lei entered became the property of the museum and were later auctioned to benefit its Education Department.

The museum’s courtyard event, held at 4428 Rice St., also underscored how deeply the Pomroy legacy still shapes Lei Day on Kauai. Irmalee and Walter Pomroy founded the museum’s first annual May Day lei contest 34 years ago, and the observance remains tied to the family’s name. Jenn Pomroy, who was among the award recipients for her own lei creation, was also part of the day’s school connection through Island School, where a social studies group of about 40 students returned from a Hawaii Island trip the night before and still showed up for the celebration.

Volunteers from Kauai Family and Community Education helped manage the steady flow of lei makers and visitors as the event ran from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The museum’s May Day is Lei Day theme, “Make a lei, wear a lei, give a lei,” captured the mix of tradition and public participation that filled the courtyard and gave residents a place to see, bid on and celebrate the island’s most creative lei work.

For the museum, the day fits its broader mission to preserve and celebrate Kauai’s heritage through exhibits, education and community outreach. That mission has deep roots: a museum committee was formed in April 1954, and the institution has grown into a civic anchor for events that turn culture into something lived, taught and passed on. On Lei Day, the result was not just a celebration, but a reminder that the island’s cultural economy still depends on the people who make, teach and wear the lei.