By STEVE TETREAULT
By STEVE TETREAULT
Stephens Washington Bureau
TAMPA, Fla. — Hawaii got a moment in the spotlight at the Republican National Convention on Thursday when a military veteran from Hilo led the audience of thousands in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Introduced by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Dylan Nonaka strode out from backstage and to the podium at the Tampa Bay Times Forum shortly after 7:30 p.m., Eastern time, wearing a suit and a maile lei.
After reciting the pledge, Nonaka called out “Mahalo and semper fi!”
“They didn’t tell me I could say anything, but I just did it anyway. What were they going to do? Fire me?” a smiling Nonaka said afterward of his ad lib, the Hawaiian declaration of thanks and the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as an Iraq combat veteran.
After his turn onstage, as Nonaka returned to his seat among other Hawaii delegates, a Minnesota delegate asked to have their picture taken together.
Another convention-goer called over while walking by.
“Hey brother, mahalo and semper fi. Loved it, bro’. It was awesome, man,” he said.
Nonaka, 31, the former executive director of the state Republican Party and a U.S. Marine who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, was the only representative of Hawaii to appear onstage at the GOP convention this week.
“This is a good deal,” said Fritz Rohlfing, chairman of the Hawaii delegation.
Nonaka spent almost the entire day preparing for his convention role.
He showed up in the convention hall for rehearsal at 11:30 a.m. but had to wait around while carpenters finished preparing the stage for the night’s convention-capping speech by Mitt Romney.
Finishing rehearsal at 2 p.m., he was driven back to his hotel to change and returned to the hall at 4 p.m., for makeup and to go over his presentation with a speech coach who was reviewing the remarks of all speakers.
The maile lei was a conversation-starter, Nonaka said.
“I just wanted to represent Hawaii, represent the homeland,” he said of the adornment. “It was cool being backstage because everybody asked about it. This is big for our state.”
Nonaka said he got butterflies waiting for his call in the wings alongside Boehner. He said the two talked about Charles Djou, the Oahu Republican campaigning to return to Congress after being defeated in 2010 by Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.
Nonaka’s friend Richard Lee Fale, a fellow combat veteran and a delegate from Hauule, Oahu, had recorded Nonaka onstage on his smartphone and came over to play it back for them. They watched it together.
“Hey, thanks for doing that,” Nonaka said.