Did anyone either work for President cravens at the PCC at BYU-H or fall under his ecclesiastical authority as stake pres.? This is old news, but he's gone through some legal troubles. my niece blogged about it, but I can't link it.

Google him if you're interested.

William Cravens lost a law suit in Hawaii. He moved back to CA, his native state, admittedly to avoid paying on the lawsuit. It did no good, as the money was confiscated from his bank account in San Diego. Then he was found guilty of playing a large role in a Ponzi scheme and bilking many members, mostly elderly, out of their lives' savings. They trusted him because he either was or had been their stake president. He was sentenced to 4 years after pleading guilty. If he served any of that time at all, which I don't believe he did, his time behind bars was greatly reduced because of turning state's evidence and ratting out everyone else.

I was too little to remember much about any of the family, but my dad said he wasn't a very honest stake president. Most of the time we were there, My dad was a bishop of a student ward, and, as such, was accountable during that time to the president of the student stake, but my mom and siblings were under Cravens' ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Where the kids were concerned, it didn't matter all that much. For Baptism for the dead interviews, it was usually a counselor and not the stake president who dealt with them. My mom had a couple of temple recommend interviews with Cravens. she said they were uncomfortable. My mom wasn't exactly Sonia Johnson the Second, but she was more liberal and liberated than most LDS women at the time, and Cravens tried to call her to repentance and threatened her with denial of a temple recommend. My dad says Mom once stormed out without a signed temple recommend. It was shortly before our family was returning to the mainland, and she was only going to the interview to attend a ward temple night, which she said she really didn't want to attend anyway. For that period of time, even if there was an issue with a professor's's wife not holding a recommend, which I don't know about one way or another, we were going to be gone before much could be done about it. My dad was just a professor on exchange from Provo, anyway. Any power to fire him was in Provo, not Laie. If there was any note in her file, the bishop and stake pres. in Utah never mentioned it. They just signed the paper and gave her the recommend.

There were those who said Cravens was racist -- anti-black because it wasn't all that long after 1978, anti-white because he's supposedly at least half Samoan, and anti-Polynesian where some of the other Polynesian cultures were concerned. More likely, he was just anti- anyone but Bill Cravens, his family, and his closest friends.

He supposedly tried to exert his influence to get more playing time on the BYU-Hawaii basketball team. I can neither confirm nor deny this, though my dad, who was close to the bb coach, insists that it was the case. I assume he was referring to what the coach told him and not any exchange between the two of them that he actually witnessed. It was common knowledge that Bill Cravens frequently hollered at the coach in the stands to put his nephew into the game. Such isn't abnormal behavior, but it takes on a different tone when the one yelling is one's stake president.

Cravens' nephew was,by consensus, an obnoxious and entitled jerk. He though being 6'8" or 6'9" or whatever he was gave him the birthright to the starting position despite any lack of talent, He was a jerk off the court as well.

Some of Cravens' 14 kids were jerks as well. From most accounts, the elder Cravens were relatively attentive parents considering that they had 14 children by the time they were finished having kids, but there was an air of entitlement about them. The kids used to take the Polynesian Cultural Center golf carts (not used for gold, obviously, but for traveling around the facility fr supervision and routine maintenance) and drive the three miles or so up Kam Higway to Kahuku High School. Surely their father must have known about this, or if he didn't, he should have. I'm sure there were lots of Kahuku High students who lived in Laie who would have preferred traveling in golf carts rather than riding the bus, but since their daddies didn't manage the PCC, they didn't have that privilege.

Some of the Cravens' kids were doubtlessly pretty good kids. My dad only remembers one who went to BYU-Hawaii while he was there. He said she was a nice enough girl. Another, who went to Kahuku High, was painfully shy almost to the point of social phobia, although she did have friends, and eventually developed enough confidence in her ability to speak to people that she coached at Kahuku High and maybe even at BYU-Hawaii. She died an untimely death a few years ago. I have no idea of the cause. She had married into the anae family, which was another prominent laie family.

Most of us here who had much of a connection to Laie were connected to BYU-Hawaii and not to the village of Laie itself, although some may have known Cravens through working at the PCC. I'm curious if anyone knew any of them.

I'm told one of my brothers had a fight of some sort with one of the middle Cravens children that resulted in both being suspended from Laie elementary school for the remainder of that day and the next day. That was a huge deal back then. My parents didn't care whose fault it was (according to my brother, it was all the Cravens' child's fault). You just didn't get in fights at school, period, and you didn't do anything to get yourself suspended form school. My dad thought it was an especially bad idea to get into a fight with anyone who was even part Samoan in a place like Laie. My brother was busted for a long time. (I've only heard my brother's side of the story, and he was all of nine, so his memories may not be all that accurate, but I can understand that sometimes a kid has to stand up for himself. Still, i saw my parents' point, too. That was the last time any kid on our family either got into a fight at school or got suspended for that reason or any other.

Cravens kid 313 out of 14 was convicted of mudering a young hawaiian surfer whose family had relocated to san diego from hawaii, as the cravens family had. I don't think the two young en knew each other in Hawaii. the elder cravens' defended their son, not unundestandably. It would be heart-wrenching to see your child face a murder charge. Part of their denials didn't really have the righ of thrith to them. seth couldn't have intended to really hurt him, according to Seth's parents, because the two were friends. if the two were ever frinds, it hadn't been for long. Seth was a member of a trouble-making group of teenagers who continued their association and group affiliation as young aduts. The victim, Emery Kauanui, was not a member of the group. Seth punched Emery and sent him to the curb after Emery had already been beaten by either another group member or by the entire group, depending upon whose story one believes, Seth claims his punch was thrown in self defense, but he could have simply backed away even if he were under attack from the already seriously injured person, and it's highly doubtful this person posed any danger to him. seth and his friends had driven to the victim's home to attack him. None of this evidence points to the two young men being friends. Still, parents want to see the best in their children. a good guess would be that Seth''s parents had been making excuses for his behavior for a long time. he was even sent back to Laie for one year of high school to

A lot of this is neither here nor there. I'm curious of anyone here has had any connection with or has any memories of the Cravens family.