Sophomores dine, dance, shake in ‘Aqua’ night

The sophomore class of 2015 celebrated their banquet at Keʻeaumokupāpāiaheiahe Dinning Hall on March 2, 2013. The night’s theme was Aqua.

“It was fantastic,” Kameryn Pupunu from Maui Prep said.

The sophomore class government came up with the theme to be completely different from their freshman banquet where the primary color was black. Balls with streamers hanging from them represented jellyfish while blue and white balloons littered the floor, giving the students a feeling of being in the water.

“We wanted a happier color,” sophomore class president Shai Ibara said.

Each table had a centerpiece with a jar of water with a goldfish inside. A student from each table was randomly chosen to take the centerpiece home. The idea was brought to life by sophomore Maile Sur.

“The inspiration came from Mehana Lee’s centerpieces at senior ball,” she said. “I thought this would be an innovative and cute idea.”

Unlike the other banquets and balls this year, the sophomore banquet was catered by Kamehameha Schools Maui’s very own food services director, Mr. John Cadman. The class presented the theme to Mr. Cadman who more than welcomed the idea of catering for the sophomore class.

“It’s what I love to do,” Mr. Cadman said. “I like it when people enjoy my cooking.”

After eating dinner, the sophomores enjoyed an award show. Students were nominated for things such as Best Sneeze, Best Laugh and Most Native.

After the award show, students and their guests watched a video presentation of their high school life so far, including homecoming, sophomore sleepover and candid pictures of the class on campus.

“It was a tribute to the class,” chaperone Mr. Kaholo Rickard said.

Music was provided by DJ’s Mackie Mac and Sherwood. The dance floor was off to a slow start, but students filled it as the night went on.

“It was pretty lame that a lot of people didn’t dance a lot at the beginning,” sophomore Jonathan Lum Lung said.

“I hope they make as many memories as they can,” Ibara said. “Sophomore year is almost over.”

Class cheer, step add zest to Homecoming Week

An on-time start, a quick pace, and shorter-than-normal cheers made for an assembly that ran twenty minutes short, Thursday, Oct. 18, as students gathered in Ka’ulaheanuiokamoku Gymnasium to end Homecoming Week with a class cheer and step competition.

“We wanted to make sure that there was enough time for all classes to do their cheers,” said Kaleihoku Kubota, student body president.

But it didn’t matter. Students took advantage of the extra time to take group pictures in their class t-shirts with gym walls covered in Spirit Week signs, balloons and streamers as a backdrop. Middle school students were also invited to sit in on the annual festivities.

Though the senior class eventually won both class cheer and step, all classes brought the intensity as they presented the cheers and routines that they’d been working on for weeks.

The freshman step group started their routine by descending the stairs of the bleachers next to their class, and once the step started, pink pom-poms fluttered in the air as the freshmen class cheered on.

Then, the sophomores were determined to get their class hyped as they stomped in sync to the middle of the gym. Their silver hula skirts moved back and forth while the step group clapped and stomped out their routine. The sophomore class kept them going by cheering them on and waving their hands in the air.

As the junior step group came to the gym floor with wacky orange shorts over their jeans, the rest of the class jumped up and down in the bleachers. Their step group was small in numbers, having only five members, but big in spirit.

“We were pretty satisfied with our performance. It was the best from what we made out of it. When my class was cheering for us, we felt supported,” junior Malia Molina said.

The senior step group stepped in style as they broke up into two lines, boys against girls. From there, the cheers of the senior class kept the steppers energized and motivated.

As the freshmen competed in their very first class cheer competition, they filled the gym with their voices, claps and transitions from standing to sitting positions. From singing songs like “Super Bass” by Nicki Minaj and “Sorry For Party Rocking” by LMFAO, they added their own flare by changing up the words and making the song match their unique personalities.

The sophomore class cheer was full of big movements like having the students do the wave while yelling “2015!” Their most memorable part was when a grey donkey jumped in front of the class and helped lead the cheer with Halia Kekuewa and Tana Tua.

The junior class cheer started off with a bang as they yelled “2014, 2014, 2014, BOOM!” Kela Killam led the class with energy and got them to stomp and clap in unison. Their spirit was off the charts.

The senior class ended the competition was a school unifying cheer by yelling “pump, pump, pump it up. Pump that Warrior spirit up!” and jumping from one side of the bleachers to another. At their last homecoming week, the seniors left a lasting impression on both judges and students.

To top it off, the entire student body and faculty gathered in the middle of the gym, linked hands and sang “Sons of Hawai’i.”

“I saw a lot more spirit during class cheer than I  saw this whole week,” said ASKSM President Kaleihoku Kubota.

Freshman stars, starlets walk the red carpet

On February 11, the freshman class of 2015 got spiffy to make their debut on the red carpet at Keʻeaumokupapāiʻaheʻahe Dining Hall, the scene of their freshman banquet. The theme was “Walking the Red Carpet” and with an added layer of Hollywood glam, the freshmen were looking like stars.

The evening started off with the freshmen getting to walk down their own personal red carpet to enter the transformed dining hall. Each student received an ID lanyard containing a personalized VIP pass to the event.

Their black, white and red color scheme was evident in the decorations inside: swaths of fabric swooping down from the ceiling, black tableware with red flowers and ribbon accents, balloons on the dance floor, and a large display of the word “Hollywood” accented with a giant paper filmstrip and twinkling white lights, as well as other decorations throughout the dining hall. The decor became a quick favorite of all in attendance.

“The decorations are beautiful. I like the Hollywood theme. It was easy to dress up for,” freshman Jessica Mendiola said.

Shai Ibara, 2015 class president, headed up the decorations committee with other government officers.

“We stayed after school yesterday until 6:00 p.m. setting up everything as much as we could. We came back this morning [Saturday] and have been here [setting up] since 9:00 a.m. I love freshman banquet because our class can spend quality time together and have fun,” she said.

Students had photo-booth style pictures taken by Bayez Photo. Freshman class adviser, Mr. Kaholo Rickard, said students had expressed worries about taking intimate boy-girl photos, which prompted him to use Bayez Photo, whose casual, fun style he was familiar with. Bayez Photo gave students props - like hats, glasses, and boas – and took four posed shots, which were printed out for them as soon as they finished.

Once everyone was seated, the dinner was open and the students helped themselves to a Hawaiian plate-themed dinner and delicious treats from a chocolate fountain dessert table. The food was catered by Maui Style Seafood Catering.  Each table came with two bottles of sparkling apple cider.

The announcement of the Hall of Fame winners was one of the evening’s highlights. Tiana Sakumoto was among the students awarded for her outstanding qualities. She won the Future Olympian award.

“I play softball and volleyball. I’m glad that I got be recognized for that tonight,” she said.

Also recognized were three students who were celebrating a birthday at the banquet: Sakumoto and twins Cody and Kyle Fushikoshi Wago, who turned 15 that night.

Sakumoto was happy that her birthday coincided with the event. “I get to hang out with all my friends!” she said.

As soon as the award winners had taken their seats, the freshmen took a walk down memory lane and watched a lengthy slideshow of photographic memories.

Feeling closer than ever after that, they took to the dance floor. Next Level Entertainment Dj’ed and played music videos on the big screen while students danced.

Though the night had begun with some of the girls receiving detention for attending in dresses that were more than four inches above the knee, the rest of the night went by smoothly.

“I am proud of the production of the freshmen banquet. We didn’t have as much help as initially promised, but those who did stay did an amazing job. They pulled together and worked hard to the end. There weren’t really any major problems; everything fell together nicely,” Mr. Rickard said.

Other KSM high school staff and students helped make the event possible. Teachers chaperoned, and Mr. Rickard attributed a lot of the success of the event to senior class adviser, Ms. Ronnelle Suda. Senior class leaders were also there to set up and monitor the buffet line all night.

Homecoming 2011: Seniors win new Spirit Week

A new Spirit Week 2011 brought students together in the spirit of this year’s school theme – huliāmahi.

The seniors won the overall first place award by accumulationg the highest point total from their participation in the seven events that took place throughout the week, Monday, Oct. 31-Saturday, Nov. 6.

“We always pull together as a class at the last minute…. We work best under pressure,” senior Keliane Shinyama said.

The juniors made a strong push for the overall award this year, coming in first place in three of the events and second in all the rest. Junior Riley Shiraishi said that the juniors were especially united through this experience. They held two sleepovers to work on their competition entries.

“People were constantly willing to help. They were always asking, ‘What can I do?’ or ‘Do you need me to do something?’ It definitely brought us together,” she said.

With the juniors and seniors battling it out for first place, the competition between the freshmen and sophomores became a matter of who would take third place and avoid coming in last.

The sophomores nearly made a clean sweep of it, taking third place in five of the seven categories, and second place in Battle of the Bands.

They also bonded this week, making posters and preparing for the float and banner.

“I only wish we started preparing earlier,” sophomore Leimana Hassett said.

Though her class came in last, the freshman class president, Shai Ibara, said she is satisfied with their first spirit week and enthusiastic about better spirit weeks in years to come.

“I hope our class shows more commitment in events and getting things organized in the future,” she said.

While Spirit Week was basically the same as in past years, there were some changes. This year, a basic dress option was added to dress-up days. Students could wear designated colors with jeans each day in addition to the usual dress-up options of wearing a full costume or a regular school uniform. This change yielded generally positive responses.

“I like that we had the option for basic dress-up days. Because it was so easy, there was a lot more student participation,” Shiraishi said.

Something else different was the bringing back of boys cheerleading. In 2009, boys cheerleading was cancelled when 50% of the teams included inappropriate content. However, this year it was reinstated thanks to a proposal by the student body government, led by president Christopher Kim.

Another change was that the varsity homecoming game was played at 3:00 p.m. so that a homecoming dance could be held that night. The other option that was considered was to have the dance on Friday night, but student government was worried that the football players would either not want to attend or not be allowed to attend on the night before the big game, and they wanted to be sure that the athletes could be included.

The new scheduling met with some complaints. Originally, people were heard to complain that the direct overhead sun would be too hot for both players and fans, but for this year, the day was overcast, and the weather turned out to not be a factor.

“It was a little hard to come from the game, straight to the dance. There wasn’t much time to get ready,” junior Shayna Ho said that night. Several other people at the dance expressed similar feelings of wishing that they had more of a break between the game and the dance to wind down and regroup.

Another complaint previous to the dance was that some people had work or other obligations to go to during the day on Saturdays.

Alumnus Mana Palafox (’09), who came back for homecoming, said that the stands were not as packed as he’s remembered seeing them, and that the walkways at the top of the stadium were fairly open, compared to years when it was nearly impossible to move on them. Though this may not be directly attributable to the new schedule, it had some speculating.

Student Activities Coordinator, Ms. Naomi Ashman, said that one of the hopes for moving the game to daytime and the dance to nightime was that the momentum of excitement from the game would carry over to the dance.

Senior lineman Ikaika Camanse said, “It was different. I liked having the game in the day…but I wish they would have made the dance either on a night before homecoming or after it.” Camanse also said that he thought it looked like there were more people in the stands, not less.

Senior wide receiver Daylan Machado disagreed about the daytime game, but agreed on the dance. “I didn’t like it. It would have been better if the game was at night, and the dance was rescheduled for another night. It’s tradition. And I was also a little tired,” he said.

Ms. Ashman said that the athletics department and school administration agreed to try the new schedule to see how well it worked and that they will meet to decide whether or not it can or should be continued.

Despite the usual grumbling about judging and other perceived Spirit Week glitches, most students were happy with the work of their student government and peers. The final results of the entire week of spirit competitions were as follows:

Battle of the Bands
4. Freshmen
3. Seniors
2. Sophomores
1. Juniors

Boys Cheerleading
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Seniors
1. Juniors

Step
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Class Cheer
4. Sophomores
3. Freshmen
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Banner
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Seniors
1. Juniors

Float
4. Sophomores
3. Freshmen
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Dress-Up Days
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Juniors
1. Seniors

Overall
4. Freshmen
3. Sophomores
2. Juniors
1. Seniors