Fred Hemmings
| Fred Hemmings | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Hawaii Senate from the 25th district |
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In office 2000–2010 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 9, 1946 Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Fred Hemmings (born January 9, 1946 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American former surfer and politician. A world-known surfer, Hemmings served as a Republican member of the Hawaii Senate from the 25th District from 2001 to 2011. Elected in 2000, he served as Senate Minority Leader from 2002 to 2010. Previously he was a member of the Hawaii House of Representatives from 1984 through 1990. His retirement from the Senate left Sam Slom, a Honolulu attorney from the 8th District, as the only Republican in the 25-member body until 2016 when Slom was defeated by a Democrat.
During the 1960s, Hemmings won the Mākaha International Surfing Championships four times. He also won the Peruvian International Surfing Championships in 1964, and then from the surf of Rincon, Puerto Rico, the World Surfing Championship title in 1968. Hemmings was a steersman on four Molokai to Oahu Outrigger Canoe racing Champion teams, and to this day is a pioneer canoe surfing steersman. He attended Punahou School where he is an inductee of the Punahou School Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1991, Hemmings was inducted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame, and in 1999 the Hawaii State Sports Hall of Fame.
He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Hawaii in the 1990 election. He had lost the general election to incumbent Democratic governor John D. Waihee III.
Fred Hemmings, one of six children, was born on January 6, 1946 to Fred Sr. who was of English, Irish, French, Indian ancestry was originally from New York and came to Hawaii in 1922 and Lilian Frietas Hemmings,who was of Portuguese extraction, whose ancestors came to Hawaii to work on a sugarcane plantation in 1883. In early childhood, Fred and three other siblings contracted polio though enduring no permanent debilitation.
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