While it is patently unfair to say that the Damien Memorial School class of 1966 has rocks in its collective head, it is true that a few of them have rocks on the brain. Or, rather, one particular boulder of weighty historical significance.

As part of an ambitious memorial project linking the school's first graduating class and faculty with all those who came after, alumni from the class of '66 have built a pathway on the school's Kalihi campus, lined with memorial pavers, leading up to ... well, nothing permanent yet.

The alumni, led by Floyd Baptist and Joseph Akim, plan on completing the path with a large boulder from Kalaupapa, the Moloka'i colony where the school's namesake, the Rev. Damien Joseph de Veuster, performed the work that would put him on the path to sainthood.

Akim came up with the idea after his fellow alumni committee members said yea to the pathway.

"My vision was that it would symbolize for the students the individuals that had come before them, manifested by the names of the first graduating class, and also the years, manifested by the class years on the pavers," Akim said. "I want the boys to feel the mana and know that they are not alone."

The boulder also would serve to strengthen the connection between the school and its patron soon-to-be saint.

"Boys are very tactile, and this is something visual, touchable, smellable," Akim said. "They can close their eyes, and if they know anything at all about Damien, they can feel that he is there with them, too."

While their efforts to get the rock project rolling has been surprisingly difficult, the class of '66 is nothing if not prepared. They were the ones, after all, who helped to build the campus upon which 39 subsequent classes have trod.

"When we first got there, it was just the brothers and us, and we had to do a lot of the building," Baptist said. "Working shoulder to shoulder brought us a lot closer."

Baptist and his fellow students — some volunteer, some conscripted via detention — installed floors, tiled ceilings and painted walls. They dug trenches for sprinklers and carried stones to build the track.

"In those times, it was 'just get the job done,' " he said. "I thought it was fun at the time."

And now the class, which has already contributed the lion's share of the $6,000 needed to complete the pathway, is squeezing blood from a bureaucratic stone as it tries to get this last, important job done.

The '66ers have been rocking around the clock for months now, but to date, their efforts to get their coveted boulder on campus has been an experiment in Herculean strain and Sisyphean reward.

They've put a giant O'ahu boulder at the site as a placeholder.

Meanwhile, Akim worked with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in trying to get permission from the National Park Service to acquire one of several rocks already cleared for an abandoned project.

For a while, it seemed like the biggest obstacle would be moving the boulder to the school. Baptist thought there would be educational value to having the the rock travel aboard the voyaging canoe Hokule'a, with students as escorts — until skipper Nainoa Thompson politely told him that a three-ton rock would probably sink the vessel.

Weeks of phone calls and contact-tapping eventually resolved most of the issues — from moving the rock from the settlement to the harbor to shipping it (likely via Young Brothers barge) to placing it on campus — but the heavy lifting was still to come.

In May, Akim and Baptist flew to Kalaupapa to meet with Ka 'Ohana O Kalaupapa, a three-year-old nonprofit group of resident-patients.

"I guess it was my fault, but I felt very assured and comfortable that they would think it was a good idea," Akim said. "There were parents (from Kalaupapa) who had sent their children to Damien. I thought it would be a matter of just saying, 'Hey, can?' "

But the response was mixed. Some who liked the idea of connecting Father Damien's legacies were enthusiastic (one patient even drove Akim and Baptist around looking for a good boulder); others who believe strongly that nothing from the settlement should be removed thought the two Honolulu guys were dumb as a box of rocks.

Last month, the alumni received a letter from National Park Service Director Tom Workman informing them that their request had been denied.

"He said that because (Kalaupapa) is a national park, nothing can be taken out," Baptist said. "He didn't see the value in it, but he left it open if we had another reason for relocating it."

Akim said he and his fellow alumni will regroup and meet again with Kalaupapa community leaders. "It's important that we approach this the right way and get permission at the grass-roots level," he said. He and Baptist also will lobby political leaders to convince the National Park Service to reconsider.

While the all-boys school bears Father Damien's name, and its chapel is designed to resemble the one at Kalaupapa, the boulder would be the only physical connection between the former Hansen's disease colony and the school.

"It's a meaningful thing," said Brother Greg O'Donnell, the school's president. "They're not taking (the boulder) away for a frivolous purpose. It will solidify the fact that we are tied to Hawai'i and that we are a part of history. It's a concrete representation of that."