Clarence Hyde Cooke, American banker. Member Hawaiian House of Representatives, many terms since 1913 (speaker of House, 1923, 27); member Hawaiian Senate, 1929-1931.
Background
Clarence Cooke was born April 17, 1876 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was the second son of Charles Montague Cooke and Anna Rice Cooke, and grandson of New England Congregational missionaries to Hawaiʻi Amos Starr Cooke and William Harrison Rice, and thus partial heir to the fortune of Castle & Cooke.
Education
Preparatory education Punchon Academy. Matriculated at Yale, 1897.
Career
In 1909, he succeeded his father as president of the Bank of Hawaii, then became chairman of the board in 1937. He also served as president of two banks on Maui, First National Bank of Wailuku and Lahaina National Bank (which later merged to become the Bank of Maui). He held high positions on the boards of many other large corporations in the Territory of Hawaii, including Hawaiian Electric Company, Hawaiian Trust Company, Molokai Ranch, and several big sugarcane plantations.
He was elected to the territorial Hawaii House of Representatives in 1913-1923 and as a delegate to the 1924 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
He was elected Speaker of the territorial House of Representatives in 1927, then elected to the territorial Senate in 1929 and 1931. They had 8 children.
Achievements
Membership
He was a founding member of The Pacific Club and the Oahu Country Club, and president of the Charles M. and Anna C. Cooke Trust (now the Cooke Foundation).
Connections
Married Lily Love, August 11, 1898, (died January 28, 1933). Married second, Elnora Sturgeon, July 10, 1936.