HONOLULU — With his political hopes dashed for the moment, former Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona on Thursday found a new high-profile position as the top fundraising and recruitment official for Honolulu's St. Louis School.
"Duke Aiona is coming home," school President Walter Kirimitsu said during a press conference at the 600-student campus on a hill near the St. Louis Heights neighborhood. "He's a homegrown product on the slopes of Kalaepohaku."
As executive vice president for development and recruitment, the 55-year-old Aiona will be tasked with increasing enrollment at the all-male campus and raising money for new facilities and programs. The new job begins Jan. 3.
"When I was here in 1973, obviously, this plaza wasn't here. A lot wasn't here," Aiona told St. Louis trustees, administrators and other officials. "I get to come back and I get to help develop and mold the future leaders of the state of Hawaii."
The new job will not interfere with his contemplation of a future political campaign, added Aiona, a Republican whose bid for governor was ended last month by Democrat Neil Abercrombie.
"I've expressed my desire to be able to reevaluate in a couple of years where I stand politically," Aiona said.
That doesn't mean he definitely will seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2014, he added, "but it does mean that I want to keep my options open."
He said he is not interested in any other political office.
The 164-year-old St. Louis School is run by a Catholic order known as the Society of Mary, or the Marianists. A private school, it offers grades 6 through 12 and shares its hilltop location with Chaminade University, another Marianist school.
Principal Patricia Hamamoto, a former state schools superintendent, will remain top education official at the school.
Aiona is a 1973 graduate and later was a head coach of its junior varsity and assistant coach of the varsity basketball teams. He also has served on the school's board of trustees since 2001.
Before taking office with then-Gov. Linda Lingle in 2002, Aiona was a lawyer, state judge and a prosecutor.
Aiona is still sporting the no-mustache look — he shaved his prominent one off before his gubernatorial effort got rolling — and said he will keep it that way.
"We also have a dress code here," Kirimitsu chimed in to laughs.
"I can guarantee you this, no earrings," Aiona added.