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Posted: Sunday, March 27th, 2005 7:47 PM HST

Mother-daughter team aims to keep hula festival local

By Associated Press

HILO, Hawaii (AP) _ Dorothy Thompson, director of the world's largest hula festival, says the atmosphere at the Merrie Monarch must be warm and homespun, heaped with a small-town feeling of aloha. Although people have offered a lot of money to commercialize the competition, Thompson and her daughter, 65-year-old Luana Kawelu, plan to keep the Merrie Monarch competition local. Thompson says she has tried to imitate the festival's namesake, King David Kalakaua, and keep all things Hawaiian. Kawelu says she does not want to change her mother's way of organizing the festival when she takes over as director. More than 4,700 people are scheduled to arrive from all over the world to enjoy this year's Merrie Monarch Festival at the Edith Kanakaole Tennis Stadium in Hilo. The festival began today. The hula competition is scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights. (Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.)