Wes Segawa completed one class this past semester at Hannibal-LaGrange University and graduated with an associate degree in May.
That’s the short of a 50-year-long story. The one class was what he lacked for the degree he started in the early 1970s.
Segawa, of Hilo, Hawaii, graduated from Hilo in 1970. Like many Asian immigrants in the Hawaiian islands, he grew up a fourth-generation Buddhist. Richard Uejo, a Hawaiian pastor and 1940 graduate with his wife Masue, led Segawa’s father and family to Christ. Segawa and his mother were baptized in Kaumana Drive Baptist Church in 1962, when he was 10.
Uejo’s children were Segawa’s age, and they also graduated from HLG.
Segawa considered the military, but Pastor Uejo suggested his parents send him miles away to the mainland, to a then two-year college called Hannibal-LaGrange.
In the fall of 1970, then HLG counselor Kenneth Moore asked what Segawa wanted to study. Said Segawa: I plan to earn a degree to enable me to acquire my uncle’s cesspool construction business.
Perplexed, Moore suggested a business major.
At HLG, he met and fell in love with Phyllis Van Meter, from Lewistown, in a speech class. She graduated from HLG in May 1972 with an associate’s degree in Secretarial science. They were married later that month in Lewistown, by former American Literature professor Milo Duer.
Surfs up
The couple moved to Hawaii three weeks later, and Segawa soon took a position with a large Honolulu construction company and on-site project manager for constructing high-rise condominiums, a Waikiki commercial building and an athletic facility at a private educational institution.
In Hawaii, Segawa earned a bachelor of science in civil engineering and later a master of business administration from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. In 1981, the couple formed Wesley R. Segawa and Associates, Inc., a structural engineering firm.
‘God’s long-range plan’
“I believe the opportunity for me to complete my associate of science degree from HLGU was a fulfillment of God’s long-range plan,” Segawa said. “We were attending the annual Van Meter Reunion in Lewistown last summer and scheduled campus tours for Culver-Stockton College (in Canton) and Hannibal-LaGrange University for two of our grandchildren.
“I jokingly asked Dr. Ray Carty (Vice President of HLGU Institutional Advancement) if I could complete my associate’s degree. A few months later, they got back to me and said I was one course short from earning my degree. Without hesitation, I asked them to immediately sign me up,” Segawa said.
The grandchildren were shocked, thinking the grandparents already had their degrees.
Segawa completed the course online.
Segawa has been active in ministry at Kaumanan Drive Baptist Church in Hilo and Olivet Baptist Church in Honolulu as treasurer, trustee, adult Sunday School teacher, and on various committees.
“My ministry will be to continue new friendships that lead them to Christ,” he said.
He also served two terms on the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention. He has been involved with the Hawaiian Island Chamber of Commerce and Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Hawaii, and on housing authorities in Hawaii.
‘Million miler’
He is a “million miler” with United Airlines, with many trips to the mainland for family activities and engineering conferences.
Among those miles was a trip to Hannibal, Missouri, in early May, 2023, where an associate’s degree in business, 50-years in the making, was presented to Wes Segawa. His wife and 16 others in the family made the trip as well.
“It was a big deal,” he said.
