Clayton D. Tremaine, Sr.
Year Inducted: 2007
Pohokala Ranch | Hawai'i
His work at Pohkala Ranch earned the Kona Soil and Water Conservation District’s Outstanding Rancher award in 1985. By then, Clayton Tremaine had been managing the ranch for 18 years. He was credited with developing a system of multi-paddock grazing cells, a 3 million gallon reservoir and brush management on more than 100 acres of the 1200 acre ranch.
This achievement was a tribute to the resourcefulness Clayton demonstrated throughout his life. Raised on O`ahu and Kaua`I, he worked from a young age as a shoe shine boy, a pinsetter in a bowling alley and a golf caddy. While in 8th grade He remembers seeing Eddie Taniguchi who went galloping through Waimea Valley on his horse bareback. This impression was no doubt heightened by the fact that Clayton himself had fallen off his first horse.
After high school he joined the U.S. Navy and after discharge joined the merchant marine. He worked the Young Brothers tug ‘Mikiala’, pulling the barge that picked up cattle at all the islands. Clayton got his start in ranch work at Pu`uwa`awa`a on the Big Island, learning about cattle, carpentry, water and the versatility of ranch work under Miki Kato.
Clayton started at Pohokala Ranch at $1.25 an hour. After 36 years as a rancher, he testifies, “It wasn’t about the money.”