Moanalua High School is a
public,
co-educational college
preparatory high school of the
Hawai i State
Department of Education and serves grades nine through twelve.
Established in 1972 and graduated its first
class in 1975, Moanalua High School is located in suburban Salt Lake
near Moanalua in the City &
County of Honolulu
of the state of Hawai i
. It
is situated on an extinct
volcano hillside
overlooking
downtown Honolulu at
2825 Ala Ilima Street. The campus boasts the bronze sculpture
Moanalua by
Bumpei Akaji and
the ceramic sculpture
Silent Sounds by
Shigeharu Yamada.
Moanalua High School (also known as
MoHS to
differentiate itself from the "MHS", acronyms associated with
McKinley High School and Mililani High School), is nationally
recognized for its academics, music program and media
communications learning center.
In 1998, it became the first student
orchestra officially invited to play at Carnegie Hall
by the governing Carnegie Hall Corporation.
This is opposed to student orchestras that played at Carnegie Hall
who were participants of special educational programs that happened
to have taken place at Carnegie Hall. Moanalua High School played
at the prestigious venue twice, most recently in 2005. The Moanalua
High School Menehune Marching Band, led by directors Elden Seta,
Rhona Barbosa, June Masuno, and Grant Otomo, is also widely
acclaimed to be one of the best in the state.
Moanalua High School recently underwent reaccreditation by
Western Association
of Schools and Colleges and has achieved the maximum
accreditation term of six years, 2006-2012.
Darrel Galera currently heads the school as
principal, along with Regina Arakaki, Ben
Meyer, Lynda Sadaoka and Julia Toyama,
vice-principals.
Origins
An ahupua a in
ancient Hawai i was a
parcel of royal land that stretched from the mountain to the sea.
The Salt Lake ahupua a within which Moanalua High School is located
was the property of wealthy landowner Samuel M. Damon. Damon was
actively involved in the
Committee of Safety that
successfully plotted the overthrow of the
Kingdom of Hawai i and
Queen Lili uokalani in 1893.
He later became one of
the first trustees of the Kamehameha Schools Bishop
Estate
and served alongside its founder Charles Reed Bishop.
Previous to Damon's ownership of the Salt Lake ahupua a, the
volcanic hillside on which Moanalua High School sits was used by
native Hawaiians in
worship. As one of the highest points overlooking
what would later become the city of Honolulu, the volcanic hillside
was revered as a place where the faithful could be closer to the
ancestral spirits and gods. It served as a sacred altar as late as
the reign of
King Kamehameha V. While
the volcanic hillside's religious value was neglected during the
urban development that commenced after statehood in 1959, Moanalua
High School is still respected as the spiritual home of the
Hawaiian leprechauns and Christianity — fairy-like, mischievous
people with a special relationship with the gods and credited with
building dams, temples and other structures throughout the
Hawaiian Islands. Today, Moanalua High
School students pride themselves in adopting the menehune as their
mascot.
Symbols
The
alma mater and
anthem of Moanalua High School proclaims,
Traditionally, the alma mater and anthem have always been sung
during the presentation of the school's
flag —
the Moanalua High School blue
crest in the
center of a field of blue and trimmed at the edges with white. The
school's colors are royal blue and silver, influenced by the colors
of the United States Marines with which the school has shared a
special relationship since its founding.[citation needed]
Students
As of 2006, the enrollment at Moanalua High School stands at 2,050
students. A consequence of its academic standards and notoriety,
the school is forced each year to turn away students from
enrollment while others are added to a waiting list — a rare action
for a public high school in the United States. The student
population is mostly made up of
Filipino American and other
Asian-Pacific races. Fifteen percent are
Japanese Americans, eight percent
are
Chinese Americans and
fifty-four percent are from other
Asian
American backgrounds. two percent are either
Samoan Americans or
Native Hawaiians while nine percent are
African Americans.
Moanalua High School has the distinction of having one of the
largest military dependency student populations within the
United States Pacific Command.
It serves
the children of enlisted personnel and commissioned officers of the
United
States
Air Force,
Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy. Students who are not
military dependents are usually children of professionals living in
the Salt Lake and Moanalua subdivisions, neighborhoods that have
been classified as
upper middle
class.
Each graduating class averages 400 students. Approximately sixty
percent become enrolled at four-year
colleges and
universities
throughout the nation while thirty percent become enrolled at
two-year colleges. Eight percent go straight to the workforce while
four percent join the
armed forces.
About five percent enroll in technical schools while three percent
are usually unsure of their post-graduation plans.
Focus on Technology
Despite its age, Moanalua High School has been at the forefront of
technology offerings. Today, the school is home to more than 800
computers attached to its local area network, one of the largest
school networks built and maintained in the State of Hawai i. While
other schools have acceptable use policies which require parental
permission to sign for their children to "opt-in" to use technology
on campus, Moanalua High School makes the use of technology
mandatory. Because Information Technology literacy has become a
requirement in today's society, parents must give compelling
reasoning to the administration should they choose to have their
child "opt-out" of technology use.
Sports
With the absence of professional sports teams in Hawai i, the
popularity of high school athletics is considerably high in the
state. In the year of Moanalua High School's founding, its
athletics department joined the Hawaii High School Athletics
Association. It currently also competes in the Oahu Interscholastic
Association, an athletic conference of public schools on the island
of O ahu. Moanalua High School competes in
air riflery,
baseball,
basketball,
bowling,
canoe
paddling,
cheerleading,
cross country,
football,
golf,
judo,
soccer,
softball,
swimming,
tennis,
track and
field,
wrestling and
water polo. Sports are divided into boys
and girls teams as well as
varsity and
junior varsity distinctions. The most
popular sports based on attendance are football, basketball and
wrestling. The Athletic Director currently is Joel Kawachi.
State Championships -
Basketball, Boys - 1996, 1997
Bowling, Boys - 1985, 1990, 2004
Golf, Girls - 2006
Competitive Cheerleading - 2003, 2004, 2005
Golf, Individual - 1976 Maurice Jeanpierre (coached by Leslie
Higashi), beat top players Kalua Makelena, Tommy Hines, D. Hurter,
Robert Black, Wade Nishimoto, Brandon Kop and R. Castillo.
[68649]
Track, Girls - 1994
Wrestling, Girls - 1999, 2000, 2001
[68650]
State Runner Ups
Basketball, Boys - 1978
Basketball, Girls - 1992
Bowling, Boys - 1984
Bowling, Girls - 1979
Cross Country, Boys - 1987,
Cross Country, Girls - 1991
Golf, Boys - 2009
Soccer, Boys - 1981, 1998
Soccer, Girls - 2005
Track, Girls - 1991
Wrestling, Girls - 1998, 2002, 2003
[68651]
Judo, Boys - 2008, 2009
The 2007 Boy's Basketball Team returned to the state tournament for
the first time in ten years. Qualified again in 2008 and made it to
the Semi-Finals before having to forfeit all of their tournament
games for the use of academically ineligible player.
Music Program
The Music Department consists of a number of various ensembles. The
list includes the Marching Band, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the
Symphony Orchestra, Symphonic Band, Concert Orchestra, Concert
Choir, Chorus, Jazz Ensemble, and Concert Band (usually consisting
of incoming freshmen).Due to the overwhelming number of students
who play orchestral instruments coming to Moanalua High School, in
2007 the Concert Strings ensemble was introduced into the Music
Department.Also offered at Moanalua High School is the Piano
program. This group, however, does not perform.
Marching band
The
Moanalua High School Menehune Marching Band is a marching band program (students grades 9-12)
with an established record as being one of the top, and largest
marching band in the state of Hawai i. The
school's entire
music department, now directed
by Elden Seta, is state-acclaimed. Its corps-style field shows are
largely known for its fast, elaborate set designs, fast movement,
and integrated and elaborate
color guard
performances of the Hawai i bands.
The 240+ member program holds its own marching festival each year
known as the Menehune Classic. It also competes in other annual
competitions such as the Kamehameha Tournament of Bands, Mililani
Trojan Band Fest, the
Oahu Interscholastic
Association (OIA) Festival, and the Rainbow Invitational. It
usually marches in at least one parade each year, such as the
Aloha Week parade, and is frequently
invited to march in parades abroad such as the
Tournament of Roses Parade.
Signature elements in its half-time shows include a set of three or
four pieces (including a quick, visual opener, a fast-paced main
piece, and ending with a ballad), expansion sets, a single company
front (usually in the final piece), horn flashes and sets that
spill into the
pit area. Not usually
in the shows (but common elsewhere) are spinning drills, park and
wail (punch/shout) segments,
follow the leader drills (AKA
snake), and park and play (standing) segments.
Recently, the marching band traveled to Osaka, Japan to march in
the Osaka Midosuji Parade.
Symphony Orchestra
The Moanalua High School Symphony Orchestra (simply referred to as
S.O. by many students) consists of students from grades 9 to 12
that have shown proficiency and competency in the string program.
Members are hand-picked to be in the Symphony and perform
repertoire ranging from
Franz von
Suppé's overture to "Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna,"
Tchaikovsky's "
1812 Overture," to "
In the Hall of the Mountain
King" by
Edvard Grieg.
[68652] The group's regular performances include the
Moanalua High School's Music Department Winter and Aloha Concerts
and the HASTA Parade of Orchestras, in which they consistently
receive a rating of Superior—the highest possible.
The
Symphony Orchestra has the distinction of being the first student
orchestra ever to be invited to perform on the stage of New York's
Carnegie
Hall in 1998. [68653] The Symphony Orchestra did it a second time in
2005, performing at the Isaac Stern Auditorium on March 20, 2005.
Out of the three ensembles to perform that night (the other two
being the New England Symphonic Ensemble and the Greater Miami
Youth Symphony
[68654]), only they received a
standing ovation in which audience members
reportedly yelled, "Good job, Hawai i!"
[68655]
Symphonic Wind Ensemble
The Moanalua High School Symphonic Wind Ensemble, referred to as
SWE (pronounced "swii") by many students, consists of the most
competent wind and percussion musicians in the Moanalua High School
band program. Students are hand-picked to be a part of this group.
The Symphonic Wind Ensemble has received consistent Superior
ratings at the O ahu Band Directors' Association Parade of Bands
and is known as being one of the top wind ensembles in the country.
The Symphonic Wind Ensemble makes appearances at the Music
Department Winter and Aloha Concerts, the OBDA Parade of Bands, and
the Central District South Parade of Bands.
The Ensemble has also
traveled to Japan in the winter of 2003 and 2006 where they
represented the United States in the All-Japan Band Festival in
Hamamatsu, Japan
.
Traditions
Homecoming
The highlight of each school year is the Homecoming Parade down Ala
Ilima Street and the Homecoming Floorshow competition between the
four graduating classes. The Homecoming football game is part of
the festivities, kicking off the active athletic season.
Graduation
At the end of each school year, Moanalua High School has the
distinction of being the first in the state to graduate its
students. Graduation and commencement ceremonies are held at the
athletic field and stadium. It is always attended by the school
superintendents, state legislators, city council members and
sometimes the
Governor or
Lieutenant Governor of
Hawai i.
A
high-profile media event, portions of the ceremonies are broadcast
throughout the state by the major Honolulu-based network
affiliates: KFVE
, KGMB
, KHNL
, KHON-TV
and KITV
. The
event attracts large crowds and often results in mass confusion
among those trying to give
lei to the
graduates.
Moanalua High School also has the distinction of graduating the
most
valedictorians each year, in
comparison to the other schools of the Hawai i State Department of
Education. As many as one dozen or more students graduate with the
honor in a single class, arguably indicative of the strength of the
school's academic programs (20 in 1998).
Notable alumni
- Angela Perez Baraquio,
Miss America 2001
- Bernadette Baraquio
Hamada, Broadcaster
- Eric Byler, filmmaker (Charlotte Sometimes, My Life Disoriented, Americanese, TRE)
- Dae Sung Lee,
United
States Tae Kwon Do National
Champion
- Tadd Fujikawa,
United
States, youngest PGA Tour
golfer
- Aaron Yamasato, filmmaker
(Blood of a Samurai)
- Felipe Ojastro III, Sports Radio
Personality
- Janel Parrish, actress/singer
(only attended Freshman year)
- Rebekah Kim, Korean singer (After School )
References
External links
Wikis
Map
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