The conservation of the Kamehameha I monument in North Kohala, Hawai’i may be described as a case study in public conservation. The monument is a cultural hybrid in that it has deeply embedded features of both Hawaiian and Western cultures. Originally gold leafed and chemically painted, the monument is now painted and celebrated by its local community each year on Kamehameha Day. Public dialogue about how to conserve the monument was used as a vehicle for community engagement in critical thinking about representations of Hawai’i’s past. Opening the conservation process on conflicting interests in the community required a reflexive approach, in which traditional conservation analysis was only one of many ways by which to assess the significance of the monument. -- SCMRE