Tickets have sold out for the 2009 Hawai'i Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C., in honor of President-elect Barack Obama, and organizers are working hard to get assurances that Obama himself will attend.

"We're very hopeful the president will come," said Maui-born Kohono Mossman, the ball's chairman. "We're doing everything we can — and when I say everything we can, I mean everything we can."

The organizers of the Island-themed ball, the 400-member Hawai'i State Society of Washington, D.C., are trying to get it designated as an official ball by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which would ensure an appearance by Obama.

The group is soliciting letters of support from Hawai'i's congressional delegation, Gov. Linda Lingle, the mayors of each island and other officials and politicians, Mossman said.

"We're also working the leaders of his campaign and we're even asking his basketball buddies to get him to attend," he said.

The Hawai'i State Society also has invited former University of Hawai'i quarterback Colt Brennan, who now plays for the Washington Redskins, and Kaua'i-born retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, among other notable people with Hawai'i connections.

Almost immediately after Obama's election victory Tuesday, Mossman's voice mail began filling up with requests for what remained of the nearly 750 tickets to the ball, which cost $200 apiece.

On Friday, he even had to turn away offers of $10,000 sponsorships because he cannot provide the eight ball tickets and the table that come with $10,000 donations.

"I never thought I'd be in a position where I am today, where someone says I want to give you $10,000 but I have to say, 'I'm sorry, we can't take it,'" he said. "It kills me when I have to turn people away because we don't have any more tickets."

NO TICKETS AVAILABLE

Interest nevertheless continued to grow from Hawai'i people trying to get to Washington to attend any of the weeklong inaugural events, said Kehau Amorin, director of business development and client relations for Panda Travel.

Panda has booked enough airline seats and hotel rooms for 350 people but hasn't had much luck getting tickets to inaugural events.

"We have feelers out all over the place," Amorin said. "We're calling government officials, tourism officials."

But the inquiries for flights and hotel rooms did not match the furious pace that preceded last year's Sugar Bowl involving Brennan and the UH football team.

"We were getting 50 e-mails per minute when the Sugar Bowl happened," Amorin said. "I had people throwing cash on my desk saying they had to get to the Sugar Bowl. We knew tickets were available. The problem with the inauguration is that there are no tickets available."

But some 15 students from Le Jardin Academy in Kailua have their arrangements and tickets.

For at least six months, the students have been planning the school's regular inauguration trip, said headmaster Adrian Allan.

"We've been at every inauguration for at least 18 years," Allan said. "We spend five days seeing the big sights and the monuments and even get to go to the inauguration speech."

This year, it just so happened that Hawai'i-born Obama will be the center of inaugural week.

LEAVING HAWAI'I MARK

"We're seeing extraordinarily high demand for Hawai'i people to participate in the festivities," said Brian Schatz, chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawai'i. "There's a desire not only to participate in the festivities but to try to see if there's an appropriate place for Hawai'i to put its cultural stamp on the inauguration of the 44th president. There is a desire to express our aloha and to showcase Hawai'i."

Even with all of the heightened interest, there is still the practical reality of the cost and availability of hotel rooms.

"Hotels are hard to find and airfares are ridiculous," said Kelli Furushima, who graduated from Punahou School with Obama in 1979.

She is one of the "Obama Sweeties," a group of female classmates who worked for Obama's Hawai'i campaign and have been talking about flying to Washington for his inauguration.

A half-dozen other classmates from as far away as Japan have been e-mailing one another to try to hold a mini-class reunion during the inauguration, Furushima said.

"We're getting e-mails from all over the place," Furushima said. "They're saying, 'Are you going? Are you going? Do you have any leads on hotel accommodations?' It's this streaming e-mail of classmates from several different states."

But the Obama Sweeties have decided to stay home and watch the inauguration on TV, she said.

Hopefully, perhaps when things settle down next year and airfares drop in the fall, the group will finally make a trip to Washington, and possibly even visit their classmate.

"We all want a tour of the White House," Furushima said. "Maybe we'll even get some time with him, possibly see him one on one and not be part of a million people."