Page 5 - MidWeek Kauai - May 25, 2022

MAY 25, 2022
KAUA‘I MIDWEEK 5
Public School Grads To Be Honored At Foundation’s Annual Banquet
FROM PAGE 4
graduates, there’s no shortage of people to recognize. Each year as part of its Kūlia I Ka Nu‘u awards banquet, Public Schools of Hawai‘i Foundation honors DOE grads who not only excel in their professions, but also do much to give back. These are individuals who exemplify leadership, courage, discipline and community-mindedness — characteristics that anyone, not just public school students, can aspire to.
also have a global impact.”
With so many influential public school
Mike Irish (Kalani High School, 1971)
CEO, Diamond Head Seafood, Halms Enterprise, Keoki’s Lau Lau
Five decades after graduating from Kalani, Mike Irish stepped onto campus with a smile on his face.
“It’s funny,” he says. “I opened the admin office and it’s identical to what it was back then.”
While its 2020 event was postponed, Public Schools of Hawai‘i Foundation is pleased to shine a light on Mike Irish, Saedene Ota and corporate honoree Alaska Airlines, represented by Daniel Chun, during its 2022 fundraising event, which will take place June 12 at The Royal Hawaiian. Learn more at pshf.org.
The buildings look the same, too, as do the classrooms, but he’s happy to note that there are new additions that benefit students, like a women’s locker room and swimming pool. Athletics was a big part of Irish’s high school life. As a prolific football player for the Falcons in his heyday, he earned a scholarship to play for University of Hawai‘i, where a sports injury during his freshman year left him temporarily paralyzed from the neck down. But exhibiting that public school grit, he persevered and with the help of expert hands at REHAB, is now known around town as the King of Kimchi at the helm of a local food empire. He credits his teachers and coaches for encouraging him, and he adds, organizations like
Public Schools of Hawai‘i Foundation are instrumental in making that happen.
“They help teachers buy simple materials, basics that you’d automatically assume would be
there.”
Raising funds and providing opportunities for students and teachers is one part of the mission,
and the other part is raising awareness that the state’s public schools need help to raise up the
Here, the honorees share a little about their high school experiences and how it shaped their futures.
next generation.
“If you wanna learn, the public schools are there to help teach,” Irish adds. “If you like sports or calculus, you have
the opportunity there at public school. It’s a matter of taking advantage of it.”
Saedene Ota
(Baldwin High School, 1987)
Owner and creative director, Sae Design Group
Daniel Chun (Mililani High School, 1997) Director of sales, community and public relations,
Alaska Airlines, Hawai‘i
Before starting her own design company, Saedene Ota thought she was going to be an archi- tect. While taking mechanical drawing at Baldwin High, the specialty sparked something in her that led her to forge her own path.
Daniel Chun’s first lessons in leadership came during his time at Mililani High, where he admit- tedly was not the best student.
“They had really good art teachers, and I did dabble in some art and foreign language, but there was something about the technical aspect of mechanical drawing that I really loved. It led me to architecture and
“Absolutely not,” Chun notes, with a laugh. “However, I think I made the most and the best out of my time in school by getting involved in the things I was really passionate about.”
then into graphic design.”
The fields of design research and graphic design weren’t
From music (he was part of the marching band) to student government to the school paper, Chun was able to try his hand at a number of things and excel at each of them.
yet popular in the late 1980s, but that didn’t stop Ota from specializing in areas like logo development, website build- ing, branding, strategy and anything else that has to do with visual communication. She went on to her dream school,
“I think all experiences are what we make of them, and any type of opportunity we have within the public school system is all a gift,” he says.
ArtCenter College of Design in Pasedena, California, to pursue study in those areas. “No one ever discouraged me from being an artist,” Ota recalls. “Most of my
After graduating from University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s travel industry management school — “Public school grad all the way!” he notes — Chun worked in tourism-related
high school teachers were incredibly supportive.”
There’s a life-long learner within Ota, who graduated a year ago with her MBA in
fields before accepting a position with Alaska Airlines a decade ago.
“I’ve fallen in love with the company,” says Chun. “It’s always had its heart in the right place. It understands that in order to be successful, we need to make sure we are
design, specifically design strategy, further enhancing the services that Sae Design Group already offers.
good partners in all of the communities that we serve.”
In fact, Alaska Airlines’ ongoing support of Public Schools of Hawai‘i Foundation
Public schools provide students who work hard myriad opportunities to learn and grow, while simultaneously giving every child a chance to succeed.
is what inspired Chun to join the organization as a trustee. As a regular attendee of the foundation’s awards dinner, he found himself constantly impressed by personal success stories, as well as the Good Idea Grants that fund novel teaching opportunities. (This year’s deadline to apply is June 13 online at pshf.org.)
“That philosophy is why public schools exist in the first place,” says Ota. “You get to see the difference in class and culture, the haves and the have nots. In public schools, regardless of where you came from, you can take an AP class, you can take band, learn whatever you want to learn. I want all children to know that there’s this opportunity in public schools to grow.”
“The foundation encourages innovation in the classroom, it funds ideas that teachers wouldn’t be able to fund on their own. These grants create such a long-lasting impact and make a huge difference in the lives of teachers and students.”