Literary Arts hosts awards, induction, performance
Photo by Aaron Veincent
Senior Mariana Kaniho reads her writing at We Digress…Live! Family and friends were welcomed to come and watch the live readings of the Creative Writing I students.
Tuesday evening, family and friends of the Creative Writing I class were invited to join the students at a live reading of their work and the award ceremony and induction of the Journalism I class in the high school choir room.
The night first began with food by the student-hosts, like myself, who brought various dishes like pizza, doughnuts, bread, and Minit Stop chicken.
After the guests finished eating at tables set up outside on the balcony, everyone went straight into the program, which started with the awards ceremony of the Journalism I class.
“Our journalism staff this year were all first-year students, first-timers,” Creative Writing I and Journalism I teacher, Ms. Kye Haina said.
This year’s Journalism I class, composed of myself and 6 other students, is made up of all juniors. For the first time in the program, there were no students in Journalism II, meaning that we created the issue without any experienced senior leaders.
After finishing, we entered the first-year work into the Hawaiʻi Publishers Hawaiʻi High School Journalism Awards contest.
Overall our staff won 12 private school division and 4 state awards. Hawaiʻi Baptist High School took 1st in the competition, but we placed 4th overall in the state against 15 high schools. For the exact overall awards won click here.
“Winning states was incredible because this was my first year of journalism, and I didn’t think I was going to win, and winning really showed me that I am capable of doing some awesome work,” junior Meaaloha McCabe said.
McCabe’s photo of a Spirit Week dance routine won first place at the state level for Best Action Photo.
Fujihara also received an award for writing the best editorial in the state, in which she called on the residents of Pāʻia to envision the future of the town and band together to make it a reality.
Poʻo Kumu Ms. Jay-R Kaʻawa handed out the awards, which were paper certificates from the HPA, but first-place state award winners received wooden plaques, which will stay with Ka Leo o Nā Koa.
After the HHJSA awards, Ms. Haina presented me with the “most valuable staffer” award, which I received after being nominated by my fellow staff members.
Following the ceremony. myself and three other Journalism I staff members were then inducted into the Quill and Scroll International Honor Society for high school journalists.
All four inductees are endorsing in the Literary Arts, and besides myself, they were juniors Deven Aruda, Riann Fujihara, and Brianne Reformina.
Being inducted included taking a pledge, receiving a membership certificate, and being pinned by a family member. For more information on this specific program click here.
“After all the awards were given out, I felt accomplished and appreciated for the work we’ve done, but I still didn’t forget about reading my poem,” Fujihara said.
After all the journalism tasks were complete, senior Treʻ Cravalho started the last portion of the night, the Creative Writing readings.
“I really enjoyed hearing a different side form them, and the creativity they put into their work. Itʻs absolutely amazing,” Ms. Kaʻawa said.
This class consisted of 10 students who overall created 120 short stories, 80 poems, and 10 novels of around 50,000 words each.
Other than just writing, the students also entered some work to a national contest site called, Teen Ink, and also uploaded some of their work on our student blogs, which you can find here.
At the event, called We Digress…Live!, students could recite a poem or an excerpt from one of their short stories.
Each could present two works, one memorized and another piece that could’ve been read. All of this had to be presented during a time period of more than two minutes, but less than five.
Before presenting, each student described his or her feelings about writing. Whether it was negative or positive, everyone seemed to agree that through the Creative Writing class, they found a new outlet for their creativity.
“This semester, specifically in poetry, was when I was able to put these things [emotions] into words in a way that I could never imagine before,” senior Raven Yamamoto said.
At the end of the evening, students received the class publication, We Digress…, a collaboration of creative writing from the student authors and artworks from Kamehameha Maui art students. Contributing writers and artists receive a copy at no charge, but additional copies are available from Brianne Reformina, who compiled and designed the book this year as part of her senior project.
Each copy is $8, and Reformina can be reached at [email protected].
editor’s note: Although we strive for objectivity, the entire Journalism staff was involved in this event; therefore, we had no choice but to allow one of our own to write this article.
