Now that I’ve recovered from the 2009 Merrie Monarch Festival I thought it would be a good time to appreciate those who were part of the great event.

First thanks to all of the halau who put in many tireless hours of practice. It seems as though the performances get better every year.

Thank you to those who put on the Merrie Monarch Festival. It was great to see founders Aunty Dottie Thompson and Uncle George Naope attend the final night. A big mahalo to Thompson’s daughter Luana who now runs the festival.

The crew behind the scenes that scrambled to put on the broadcast, in HD for the first time. KITV Engineering Director Rodney Shimabukuro was everywhere.

The broadcast talent was great as always, but here is where I really wanted to go. The biggest thanks and my amazement goes to KITV’s Paula Akana. Paula lost her father one week before the Merrie Monarch broadcast started.

She is made of sterner stuff than most. Despite her tragic loss, she managed to finish putting her Best of Merrie Monarch and Backstage at the Merrie Monarch shows together in the days after her father’s death. She then went on to show her professionalism by hosting the festival for six hours plus a night.

Paula has kept her pain private and is obviously still grieving, but she felt she couldn’t let down the public or the station by stepping down from the Merrie Monarch Festival broadcast. Send your thoughts, prayers and aloha.

I’ve been informed that one of our competitors (KGMB) has launched a flood of blogs and posts. Kudos to them.

It’s not easy doing more with less. We all face tough times with cutbacks and lean budgets.

I pledge to our viewers here at KITV.com that we will strive for excellence. We all make mistakes, but we will perservere to bring you updated coverage with extras that can help make you  informed of what is happening and how you can take advantage of the issues facing our islands.

We will unveil new products in the coming weeks that will help you be part of the KITV News team. Some of the products will also help you with you finances, traffic, voicing your opinion and more.

Aloha, Brent Suyama, Managing Editor KITV.com

The good thing about technology is that it allows us to access some of our work wherever you need to. However, sometimes the technology lets you down.

I’m the managing editor of KITV.com and I work on the site from all over. One time I even did work from Paris on a vacation. However, no power — no can do.

I made it to my parents home in Wahiawa where they had power. No cable Internet service cut me out there. My mother’s AT&T wireless card worked for about 15 minutes.

Finally, I’ve had to come into KITV for the work. However, KITV is owned by Hearst-Argyle. They help us with a team of Internet specialists around the country. They provided updates to the site while I faced the hurdles of the power outage.

It’s always nice to know you have backup.

KITV is planning a 1-hour special news broadcast at 5 p.m. We’re getting the latest from HECO, the city and others up on the site as fast as we get it.

Stay with us and thanks for counting on us.

Brent Suyama KITV.com managing editor

Hawaii now has its first locally-born president.

Nov. 4 will be a historic day for our nation’s top offices. Either we will have the first African-American president or we will have the first female vice president.

The fact that Sen. Barack Obama is Hawaii-born has strengthened the appeal for many Hawaii residents.

Locally, we will keep close track of the numbers for you. We will have live coverage from Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s party, Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi’s party, Obama and Sen. John McCain’s parties.

We also have crews on Kauai and the Big Island to follow the candidates of those mayoral races.

Check with KITV.com for the latest results. We also will have a page that has the electoral maps for the major news media outlets including: ABC, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, FOX and The Associated Press.

You also have the chance to comment on the election at: http://www.kitv.com/politics/17850517/detail.html

The state’s election printout summary says that the race for Sen. Ron Menor’s seat has nine of nine precincts reporting in.

State elections officials told KITV’s Daryl Huff they believe pranksters are overwhelming the state elections results site with requests.

The reason they said that is because only 22 users were logged in, but the site was bogged down.

One race that has drawn attention is the Senate seat for Mililani. Incumbent Sen. Ron Menor was arrested on DUI charges. He denied any improper action.

After the first printout, Menor trailed challenger Michelle Kidani garnered 792 votes compared to Menor’s 753.

Incumbent Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu also faced DUI charges and crashed his car into a medial freeway barrier. He apologized to the public. He faced a last-minute onslaught of negative mailers about his DUI.

Karamatsu led after the first printout by a sizeable margin over Ty Cullen with 395 votes compared to Cullen’s 192 votes.

At 7:05 p.m. the state Office of Elections provided the results from its first printout.

It showed Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann way ahead of Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi and UH professor Panos Prevedouros.

At about 6:40 p.m., KITV’s Daryl Huff said state elections officials have yet to hear whether about 30 precincts ended voting.