Page 4 - MidWeek Kauai - Aug 25 2021

4 KAUA‘I MIDWEEK AUGUST 25, 2021
For Darah Dung, host of The Pet Hui show and MidWeek’s newest columnist, success has always been about elevating the good and making friends along the way.
Darah Dung says that she’s a failure. It’s an impossible concept to wrap your brain around — she’s an accom- plished actress, admired beauty queen and a commit- ted community volunteer. However, there is actually one thing she hasn’t been successful at: fostering dogs.
er, we’ re foster fails because we still have them,” she says with a laugh.
The Roosevelt High School and University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa alumna, along with her sisters Dana-Li and Den- by, first caught the public’s attention when the trio were winning beauty pageants. But it was never about tiaras for the siblings.
The plan worked. Dung, who’s been crowned Miss Teen Hawai‘i 1999, Miss Chinatown Hawai‘i 2003, Miss Chinatown USA 2003 and 56th Narcissus Queen, has made lifelong friends through her pageant expe- riences.
She currently has five dogs in her family: Harley, Draco, Gage, Shiloh and Stitch. Dung adopted Har- ley from Hawaiian Humane Society. Draco was her husband’s dog before they met (“obviously, now, he’s mine”) and siblings Gage and Shiloh, as well as Stitch, were all former fosters.
It’s no surprise that the host of The Pet Hui (on Spectrum OC16) would find it difficult to part with an adorable dog. The program is Hawai‘i’s only show that’s all about pets. Dung has been hosting it for about five years now. Her older sister, Denby, was the original host.
“My sister, Dana, she was the very first one. She wanted to make friends,” Dung says.
“I’m still friends with so many of the girls ... I’ ve gone to their weddings and baby showers. I feel like that has been such an amazing takeaway from the pageant- ry of it, just the friendships and the sharing of the lives together,” she explains.
Dung, who is a founding board member of The Salvation Army’s Echelon, lends a hand at one of the group’s food distribution community service events. PHOTO COURTESY DARAH DUNG
“We started out fostering a lot of them, and 12 years lat-
“Every single pageant we have ever done, she has en- tered us in,” Dung says.
“My mom and dad (An-
“My brother was in the
“I loved the people who are in that (world) and I feel that they are so positive and happy and full of energy, so
“Clearly, we don’t know how to foster because we just adopt them.”
“I love the concept of the show because it’s about ed- ucating the public about an- imal care, but it’s also about helping to find lost pets in the community and reuniting them with their families and just giving back,” she adds.
Dana entered a pageant after reading about it in the newspaper, and — apropos for someone adept at be- friending others — she won Miss Congeniality. She en- joyed the experience so much that she encouraged her sis- ters to enter pageants as well.
nette and the late Dennis Dung) were always singing, and my mom was an opera singer. They always encour- aged us,” she explains.
Honolulu Boys Choir,” she notes.
Dung’s chosen talent for those pageants was singing. It’s a talent that was nurtured at home and through her the- ater experience.
All that singing “led to mu- sical theater,” she recalls.
In fact, her brother, Dean, the eldest of her siblings, was performing even before his sisters.
In the theater, Dung found another home.