Gathers Insignias for Maui Police Officer : Huntington Beach Man Patches Up Chance Encounter

It began as a chance meeting between a retired fire captain from Huntington Beach and a young Hawaiian. It became a national chain reaction.

It all started in the summer of 1984, when William F. Keene, who retired from the Los Angeles County Fire Department in 1977, was visiting the islands with his wife, Evelyn.

“We were at the Maui airport getting ready to fly to Kona when this young security guard came up to me,” Keene, 63, said Saturday. “I was wearing a cap with the L.A. County Fire Department patch on it. This kid asked me if I could get him one, and I said I would.”

The patch collector was Keith Taguma, who was in his early 20s at the time.

Kept Putting It Off

“I was going to write him, but kept putting it off,” Keene said.

“Finally, it was June, 1985, and the wife and I were going back to Maui, so I gathered up an L.A. County Fire Department patch and a couple of others and took them with me.

“I asked about Keith when I got to the Maui airport, and they told me he’d joined the Maui Police Department. So I called the police department and left word that we’d meet him after we got settled in.

“But the day we were going to meet Keith, there was a story about him in the morning newspaper. He’d been shot in the stomach. Seems he’d stopped a man. The man grabbed his gun and shot him. Keith was in critical condition.”

Sent Patches to Hospital

Keene said that he sent the three patches to Taguma at the hospital, via the Maui Police Department.

“Keith’s mother called me up before we left the island and thanked us and told us how much it meant to him,” Keene said.

When he returned home, Keene got a card from Taguma that also thanked him profusely for the gift of patches.

“ ‘What a nice kid,’ I thought,” Keene said. “And I decided to try to get more patches forhim.”

Story in Magazine

Keene wrote to the magazine of the statewide California Firemen’s Assn. The magazine wrote a story.

“I started getting letters and patches three days after that magazine article came out,” Keene said.

“Then I decided I’d try to get Keith some patches from other states, so I wrote a police department and a fire department in a city in 48 different states. As of today, I’ve got responses and patches from 43 states. I’m going to try to get something from all 50 states.”

The Keenes will return to Maui on vacation next month. This time, he will bring Taguma about 150 patches and possibly more, as the letters keep rolling into his home in Huntington Beach.

‘Letters Keep Coming In’

“People are writing me, sending me patches, and some of them are writing other departments, so the letters keep coming in,” said Keene. “I always knew fire people are good people, and police are, too. Everybody’s wanting to help.”

Keene, who was wounded as a U.S. Army infantry officer in Germany in World War II, said people in police and fire departments know what it’s like to face death and danger.

Taguma was hospitalized for about four months, Keene said. “He’s back to light duty, and I’m going to see him in June.”

It will be the first time since that chance meeting that the retired firefighter and the Hawaiian police officer have seen each other.

“I only talked to him five minutes at the airport that day, but now I feel like he’s part of my family,” Keene said. “I feel like I know him and his family as well as I know my own two daughters and four granddaughters.”

Taguma is “going to be thrilled,” Keene said. “All these cops and firemen and everyone else wanting to do something for him. Hey, it’s really gratifying.”