A group of ninth-graders, gathered in King Kalakaua’s office in Iolani Palace, gazed at portraits of the royal nephews, who looked to be about their age. “They were the first California surfer dudes,” said docent Phyllis Ching Schwartz, 72, recounting the princes’ experiences at a mainland boarding school. The students’ laughter turned to looks of horror when she asked, “Can you imagine having your report card printed on the front page of the Honolulu newspaper?” That’s what happened to Prince David Kawananakoa.

At Bishop Museum, Win Rosa, in a wide-brim hat, led visitors through a garden of native plants, giving their names and uses, including a mouthwatering description of how ti leaves and food are layered in an imu.

On any given day, volunteer docents like Schwartz and Rosa are busy bringing the past to life and teaching art and culture to visitors at Hawaii’s nonprofit museums. Museum officials say docents are essential to their operations.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” said Betsy Forrest Robb, curator of education at the Honolulu Museum of Art, where docents donate more than 6,000 hours a year providing tours.

Some museums, however, are struggling to fill their volunteer rolls for a variety of reasons ranging from ill health to the terrible state of traffic in Honolulu. It’s hard to imagine docents being replaced by audio tours, but this is what’s happening at Iolani Palace.

“We have a shortage of docents, which is why we’re cutting back on our guided tours,” said Kippen de Alba Chu, executive director of the palace.

Since 2000 the average number of visitors has grown to 387 from 229 per day, Chu said. Meanwhile the docent pool has shrunk from 50 volunteers in 2005 to 33 today, according to docent educator Zita Cup Choy in a recent interview with Chu and Cindy Ascencio, volunteer coordinator, in the administrative offices in the Kanaina (Old Archives) building on palace grounds.

Bishop Museum has seen “a huge drop”  during the last two years, said Anna Scott, director of human resources and volunteering. In that time, docent numbers have dropped to 27 from about 45, she said, mostly due to health problems.

Fifteen years ago Iolani Palace offered docent-guided tours throughout the day. Today live tours end at noon because the docents don’t want to risk getting stuck in rush-hour traffic. “They’ve worked all their lives, so why sit in traffic now?” Chu asked.

Scheduling can be adjusted, but there’s no flexibility when it comes to the main reason docents leave for good: “Because they’re retirees, we actually lose them to death,” Chu said.

Others are forced to withdraw because they become ill or move to nursing homes.

Another dampening factor has been the economy. Since the recession of 2008, the palace has had more trouble recruiting new docents. “What some of them are telling us is they cannot retire and have to get another paid part-time job,” Chu said. “They can’t afford to volunteer.”

There is another reason docents leave the palace. “We do dismiss volunteers,” said Ascencio.

It’s very rare that docents are let go, she hastened to add. Only two have been dismissed since 2009.

“One was for inappropriate behavior — an old gentleman making flirtatious remarks toward a young guest, asking for her cellphone number.” The other was a docent who made rude remarks about other volunteers.

To lead tours at the palace, docents must be certified, which entails attending months of classes directed by Choy. To pass, they must get a score of at least 90 percent on a detailed 76-question test covering history, genealogy, the meanings of Hawaiian words and the palace’s structure and decor.

Once certified, docents are supervised and given feedback on their tours. “The docents behave better if any of the three of us are in the building,” Ascencio noted. She, Choy and Chu pay close attention to visitor responses on palace questionnaires and online reviews, including praise and occasional complaints — “or, as I like to call it, opportunities,” Choy said.

In recent feedback on social media and palace visitor surveys, one visitor criticized a docent for being “way too personal with her tour … based on her very clear pride of Hawaiian heritage (to the point of rudeness).” But there were also words of praise. “She was very knowledgeable — (I) appreciate this information.”

Another wrote that a docent’s equating the taste of poi to library paste was “disrespectful to the culture.”

And sometimes guests misbehave. Recently there was the father of young children who was caught crouching low to snap photos under women’s skirts, Chu said, shaking his head.

That type of incident is another reason why in-person guides can be better than audio tours. “It seems guests touch things when on an audio tour,” Chu said. “Sometimes we find artifacts have been moved.”

“The other day, someone peeked under Queen Kapiolani’s bedspread,” Ascencio added.

Rueful laughter was followed by a communal sigh. “You’ve got to have a sense of humor at this job,” Chu said.

The dwindling of docents at Iolani Palace and Bishop Museum reflects a general trend for volunteers statewide. In 2013 Hawaii ranked 44th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., for its overall rate of volunteering, according to the Corporation for National & Community Service, a federal agency that works with a network of nonprofit partners to support volunteerism.

“What you’re seeing with respect to the docents, to a certain degree, is representative of volunteerism overall with Hawaii,” said Derrick Ariyoshi, Hawaii state program director for CNCS.

Among Hawaii residents of all ages, 22.6 percent volunteer compared with top-ranked Utah with a rate of 44.6 percent.

Arioyshi agreed “absolutely” that the economy has played a part in discouraging volunteerism. “No question about it,” he said, citing the high cost of living in Hawaii.

He urged Hawaii museums and other nonprofits to reach out to a potential mother lode of volunteers: baby boomers.

CNCS reports a surge in volunteerism nationwide as the 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 retire. Currently the boomers’ volunteering rate is 30.9 percent, “significantly higher” than the rates recorded for the previous two generations, and that number is predicted to keep rising.

Organizations need to be more strategic and creative in recruiting boomers, Ariyoshi advised. “They want to be engaged and to know what they’re doing is making a difference,” he said, adding that this could apply not only to baby boomers, but to Generation X and the “millennials.”

At least one local museum has had resounding success with volunteers by making the work relevant and rewarding in many ways. The Honolulu Museum of Art has a thriving program with 184 docents and “no trouble finding new ones,” said Robb, the museum’s educational curator, who leads required two-year art history and public education classes for new docents.

“I always have people submitting applications,” she said.

Creative opportunities for docents include hosting activities at the popular ART- afterDARK events on the last Friday of each month and guiding tours at the museum and Spalding House for the 24,000 students who visit each year.

Bishop Museum, which also hosts school tours, has been ramping up to rejuvenate its docent program. “Recruiting is a large part of my position,” said Angela Ameling, docent coordinator, who came on board this year.

“Ideally, we want to have 50 to 60 docents all over the museum campus,” said Scott, the human resources director. A docent training course is planned to start in January, and Scott and Ameling are seeking to accommodate the schedules of younger volunteers by offering classes in the evenings and on weekends.

Other rewards for the docents include learning and socializing.

“They like the social interaction and it keeps their brains sharp,” said Chu, who has worked with retirees for nine years as director at Iolani Palace.

At Bishop Museum, docents get together at the end of every month for an extended learning opportunity they all enjoy, said docent Sandy Delmonte, 72, who has been leading tours of Hawaiian Hall since 1983.

“It gets me out of the house and relating to people. And I’ve made so many friends,” said Rosa, who has lived alone since his wife’s death.

At the Honolulu Museum of Art, “The docents oversee their docent room and social events, manage their research and communicate among themselves through a weekly e-news blast,” Robb added.

Baby boomers who are still trying to find themselves might appreciate that docenting can sometimes lead to a new career. Such was the case with Choy, 62, who started volunteering at Iolani Palace in 1977 and joined the staff in 2003. And Bill Marston, 60, began as a Bishop Museum docent in 2010 and joined the staff as a culture educator in 2011.

“I grew up in Halawa Housing, and my unofficial baby sitter is still hanging in Hawaiian Hall,” Marston said with a smile, referring to the life-size model of a sperm whale that has captivated generations of schoolchildren.

“It’s a mutually beneficial relationship,” Ariyoshi said of volunteering. Institutions get valuable services: Hawaii volunteers’ work was valued at an average $23.14 an hour in 2014, according to CNCS.

For baby boomers and younger folks who are looking for meaningful, challenging volunteer work — and to meet like-minded souls of any age — following a Honolulu museum docent on a tour will help them see how much more they have yet to learn and share.