Howard Dashefsky
Photo courtesy Howard Dashefsky
After decades of tightening stories and compressing sound and audio bytes to fit the few-minute segments he had time to air at his previous anchor position at KHNL, Howard Dashefsky is now embracing his ability to take the time to capture an overall essence of each story he now helps to produce and create. After nearly 10 years at KHNL, Dashefsky was let go when the KHNL, KGMB9 stations merged in 2009. Since, he has kept quite busy in expanded opportunities with both OC-16 and OC-Sports, which broadcasts UH-Manoa sporting events.
Teaming up with veteran award-winning photojournalist Sila Luaifoa, he hosts, writes and co-produces Hawaii Sports People, which airs Wednesdays at 7 p.m. on OC-16.
“We’re just two guys with a hand-held camera – it’s kind of funny because we shoot a lot of the video with a GoPro and track our audio in the car. It is just bare bones. We have 50 combined years of experience, and we do great stories and have the privilege to share with the public,” says Dashefsky, who was featured on MidWeek‘s cover Sept. 30, 1987.
Dashefsky and Luaifoa have found so much of a groove working together over the past two years that their work has been nominated for seven regional Emmy awards, including two stories that are competing against each other for “Best Sports Feature” at this year’s award ceremonies held in San Francisco.
“When people watch the Olympics, some watch for the competition and others watch for the background stories. This show is not really a sports show. It is great stories about great people with a sports theme,” adds Dashefsky, who also does play-by-play coverage for many high school sports events on OC-16, as well as pre- and post-game coverage of UH sports, including football, basketball and Wahine volleyball.
“The stories are not about X’s and O’s,” he says. “We are about people overcoming adversities who are inspirations.”
Two extremely influential stories are Heart of a Champion, which features Kapolei High School football player Papu Uti’s transition from the football field. The other, Running For Cover, highlights Campbell High School cross-country star Keahi Inay and the escape running provides for him as he wakes up each morning with autism.
Both stories can be found at youtube.com/watch?v=MdBB4d4oCg0 and youtube.com/watch?v=aNu1kJ4nEto.
Dashefsky also is thrilled with the work his consultation company DNA Communications is doing to help promote and support the newest professional golf tournament to head to Hawaii, The Pacific Links Hawaii Championship, slated for Sept. 10-16 at Kapolei Golf Course, now owned and operated by Pacific Links Hawaii.
“It’s kind of perfect because all of the Hawaii sports are winding down,” he says. “My focus is hammering this down and getting it going. We had a press conference with Greg Norman and are going to have a great field.”
He also notes this is a “double-Dashefsky” issue of MidWeek, as his daughter Kylee is one of the swimsuit models in our cover story spread.
