STEVE UYEHARA '94: MR. SUNRISE, MR. DAMIEN

Steve Uyehara '94, emceeing at Damien's Kulalaulea 2015

Most of us have surely seen the handsome, animated face of Steve Uyehara on television before, as well as at Damien Memorial School events.  Uyehara’s gig for the past eight-and-a-half years has been at the Hawaii News Now morning show aptly named Sunrise, so he is always in the news.  But in the February 3, 2016 edition of the MidWeek news magazine, Uyehara appears in print media on the front page with his beaming, “sly” smile.  The accompanying story is aptly entitled Meet Mr. Sunrise, a part bio and part tribute to his amazing run on the successful local television news show.  

Uyehara is a 1994 graduate of Damien Memorial School where he played football, volleyball and excelled in Speech competitions.  Uyehara went on to Cal-State Northridge in the Los Angeles area and while taking journalism reporting classes there Uyehara found his passion.

Upon returning home, Uyehara worked as an intern at KITV and then honed his skills at KHON before fatefully being paired with Liz Chun at KGMB as part of the sports team.   Chun and Uyehara would later marry and now have two beautiful preschoolers.

In 2007 KGMB reintroduced a local news morning show, teaming up Uyehara with the “affable” Grace Lee and the show has been a hit with Islanders ever since. 

Regarding the show, Uyehara states in the article, “It is nice to be part of Sunrise because, No. 1, we started something.  And, No. 2, I honestly feel like we were the first station that treated the morning show like it wasn’t the JV team.”  In 2009 KGMB (CBS) partnered with KHON (NBC) to form the multi-affiliate (shared services) news program Hawaii News Now.

Rick Blangiardi, Hawaii News Now general manager describes Uyehara in MidWeek as “an accomplished and versatile morning show anchor for many reasons, but in my opinion, ever since the first day we broadcast our new morning show...Steve flipped his switch to ‘on’ with a passion, tireless work ethic, and giant personality, which quickly endeared him to thousands of morning viewers.”

Chun comments in the MidWeek article that her husband “doesn’t take himself too seriously, but he takes what he does seriously.  He brings to daytime television that local sense, relatable guy, and people on the street don’t hesitate to come up to him, and I think people like that the guy they wake up to is the same guy they bump into in the store.”

MidWeek describes Uyehara as much as a nice guy off the air as he is on the air.  And that seems to say that he is a Damien guy wherever he is.