Thurston Twigg-Smith

Twigg-Smith, his brother David, and sister Barbara attended Lincoln and Kapalama elementary schools. Twigg-Smith went on to President Theodore Roosevelt High School for junior high and entered Punahou School in the 10th grade on a scholarship.

In the 1990s, Twigg-Smith began taking an active role in opposing the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, writing a book, Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter? in 1994 that defended his grandfather's actions. He funded several programs and lawsuits that advocate against a sovereign Hawaiian nation and Hawaiian-based policies in Hawaii.

Twigg-Smith founded the Persis Corporation in 1967, originally named "Asa Corporation (Hawaii)" after his ancestor. Persis Corporation philanthropy includes Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House (formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu), Friends of Opal Creek, Goodale Farm, Hawaii Theatre Center, Historic Hawaii Foundation, the Laniakea Foundation, the Lyman House Memorial Museum, Punahou School, and Yale University. Thurston Twigg-Smith was a major supporter of non-profit service organizations and of the arts, and in 1997 he was named Hawaii's Philanthropist of the Year. The Yale University website notes:

In 1961 Twigg-Smith took control of the financially ailing paper with the help of outside investors. It became financially profitable. In 1993 it was bought by a regional subsidiary of the Gannett Company for $250 million.

Returning to Hawaii in December 1945, he started work at the Honolulu Advertiser in February 1946. As a major, he started the 483rd Field Artillery battalion in the Hawaii National Guard. He left the guard in 1954 as a lieutenant colonel to concentrate on his duties as managing editor of the newspaper.

He married Laila Roster (née Bergs) (1944-1998), an art collector, in 1984; they divorced in 1994.

In 1942 he married Bessie Blossom Bell (1921-2010) and divorced in 1984. They had five children.

He graduated from Punahou School in 1938 and earned a mechanical engineering degree from Yale University in 1942. Twigg-Smith served in the armed forces during World War II in Europe in five campaigns. He attained the rank of captain in the field artillery and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Thurston Twigg-Smith (August 17, 1921 – July 16, 2016) was an American businessman and philanthropist from Hawaii.

Twigg-Smith was a fifth-generation descendant of missionary settlers in Hawaii. He was born in 1921 in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of William and Margaret Carter Twigg-Smith (née Thurston) (1895–1976). He was the great-great-grandson of two missionary couples: Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston and Lorrin Andrews and his wife Mary Ann Wilson. He was the grandson of an American lawyer, politician, and businessman born and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, Lorrin A. Thurston, who played a key role in the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. His father William was an artist and a musician, who supported his family as an illustrator at the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association.