University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa athletics director David Matlin and his wife, Dana, have pledged $35,000 to create the Lillian S. Hatate Scholarship Endowment. This scholarship will support UH Mānoa full-time student-athletes from any sports team 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, Hatate 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.
About Lillian Hatate
Hatate graduated from Roosevelt High School 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 Hawaiʻi 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 Oʻahu elementary schools before settling on her permanent teaching home at ʻĀina Haina Elementary where she eventually retired after 25 years of service. Even when she was not in the classroom, Hatate 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 towards higher education and that we can help support another proud University of Hawaiʻi student who shares that same dream,” said Dana Matlin.
David Matlin added, “Lillian was an incredibly special person and teaching was how she changed Hawaiʻi and her family for the better. On a personal note, Lillian encouraged me to return to school to get my MBA upon moving to Hawaiʻi in 1993 and my Shidler education has been a difference maker for me.”
