Editor’s Note: This story contains some spoilers from today’s program.

The Oliveira family of Maui took their quest to honor their late father, a Vietnam veteran, all the way to Family Feud’s game show stage.

Four sisters and a daughter will compete in the popular game show that pits two families against each other as they try to guess the most popular answers to survey questions.

The show airs at 1 p.m. today on KHON2.

Competing are Lisa Oliveira-Tua of Kahului; Momi Oliveira-Tomaszek of Vancouver, Wash.; Julie Oliveira-Payton of Honolulu; Judy Oliveira of Kailua, Oahu; and Teilissa Tua, Lisa Oliveira-Tua’s 31-year-old daughter who lives Washington and is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools Maui.

The family was on a mission — not only to prevail on the game show, but to use the potential winnings to take their family and their father’s Army buddies to see his name engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.

Getting his name on the wall was already a victory in itself.

Fifty years after being hit by fragments of a rocket-propelled grenade in the Vietnam War, the late Capt. Lawrence “Larry” R. Oliveira of Nahiku received his Purple Heart in November 2019, thanks to tireless years of paperwork and calls by his daughters, family members and Maui veterans. He also later had his name placed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., a rare honor that’s difficult to obtain for veterans who were injured in the war but died outside of Vietnam, as in Lawrence Oliveira’s case.

He had returned to Hawaii after his injury in 1969 and died five years later when his youngest daughter was 3 months old and the eldest was 9. His wife, Hazel Oliveira, died in 2014.

But, perhaps for their last quest, the five daughters, all graduates of St. Anthony High School on Maui, wanted the whole family and their father’s Army buddies to see his name on the wall in Washington D.C., a trip that would total around $20,000.

Judy Oliveira’s 13-year-old daughter, Isabella, told the family that the game show Family Feud was coming to Hawaii and that they should enter, as they could win $20,000. They and hundreds of other families auditioned at the Hawaii Convention Center in October 2019.

The family thought they didn’t stand a chance. But they got picked.

After some starts and stops, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the family flew to Atlanta in July last year to tape the show.

Spoiler alert.

They didn’t win, therefore no $20,000.

But it wasn’t a fail. The family was able to save during the pandemic and will travel to see the wall on Veterans Day in November. Only the sisters were able to see their dad’s name being inscribed on the wall in late 2020.

Through the game show, the sisters made lifelong friends, had great experiences and were touched as Family Feud host Steve Harvey, upon learning about family’s journey, looked into one of the cameras and thanked his brother for his service during Vietnam.

Harvey said it was the first time he had thanked his brother. He also asked those in the audience and crew to stand if they had served in the military.

“It was a chicken-skin moment,” said Julie Oliveira-Payton. “Standing there on the Family Feud stage, on a game show we watched as children, telling our dad’s story, we felt we had already won.”

The sisters, who were back on Maui last weekend for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Candelight Ceremony, reflected upon their Family Feud journey.

“The connections and memories we’ve made from our Family Feud audition in October 2019, through our filming and airing are priceless,” said Lisa Oliveira-Tua. “We won the moment we decided to audition and selected to represent our island home, Maui.”

She and the sisters agreed that it was Oliveira-Tua’s husband, Lemoe Tua, who helped propel them through the local audition on Oahu, although he was not selected for the actual TV show competition.

The sisters wore matching purple shirts during the Hawaii audition. And Lemoe Tua, a former offensive lineman for the University of Hawaii in the late ’80s and early ’90s, was “coerced” into wearing a sparkly shirt with the words “Believe” across his chest.

“He was the real reason we made it through the second round at the Convention Center that day,” Oliveira-Payton said of her brother-in-law. The family jokes that he was not selected for the national show because of his size and that he would cut off his smaller sisters-in-law from the camera view.

The women recall their eldest sister Lisa Oliveira-Tua running a tight ship when they got to Atlanta. Although the family was free to roam by the show, Oliveira-Tua had them praying, visualizing, practicing surveys, doing mock dress rehearsals and reminding them why they were not allowed to leave the hotel except to walk across the street to the Hickory & Hazel restaurant. Coincidentally, Hazel was the name of their mother.

Oliveira-Payton said Oliveira-Tua insisted they stay close to the hotel “so we wouldn’t catch COVID and bring it home to Hawaii. So Maui thinking.”

“Lisa has taken care of us her whole life and she really is the most amazing oldest sister and leader who holds us all together,” Oliveira-Payton said.

The daughter/niece of the bunch also treasured the time with her family.

“It was such an incredible experience, we made memories to last a lifetime,” Teilissa Tua said. “And ultimately, time spent with my mom and my aunties was the best prize for me.”

Even as she did not compete, youngest sister Laurielyn Oliveira Loa of Las Vegas did fly to Atlanta to be with her sisters. Oliveira Loa did not try out for the competition as she was busy with her family and schooling at the time.

In today’s episode, the Oliveira family will compete against the Sturdivant family from Mississippi, whom they befriended during the required COVID testing to appear on the show. They later found out that the nice family they’d met and gotten along with would be their opponents.

“We wanted to win, but we also wanted them to win more,” Oliveira-Payton said.

The Mississippi family had gone through major trauma, with one member hit by a drunk driver a few years before, resulting in many surgeries, physical therapy, bone transplants and legal battles.

The Oliveira and Sturdivant family hit it off and the Mississippi family will be coming to Hawaii to visit in October.

“As painful as losing is, we know that God always has a plan,” Oliveira-Payton said. “In our journey to get our dad’s name on the Vietnam Memorial wall, we’ve learned that his plan is worth waiting for and always bigger and better than ours. And we’ve seen God’s many blessings unfold every day in our daily texts and conversations about our experiences those five days at Family Feud.”

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.