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Celebrating the End of the First Trimester

Dear Readers of the What's New, 

We are gobsmacked here at PBA, as Thursday, October 20 marks the end of the 22-23 Fall Trimester.

One of the reasons we have a hard time believing the trimester’s over is the incredible number of activities PBA has fit into a scant twelve weeks.

For that reason, we thought it would be great to publish for this issue a Fall Trimester retrospective: short blurbs remembering highlights of the marking period and lots of pictures.

Hope you enjoy. We look forward to continuing the school year with many great activities to come in the Winter Trimester.

As ever, thank you so much for your enthusiastic support of Pacific Buddhist Academy!

Warmly, 

Josh Hernandez Morse
Head of School

PBA Photo Tour

As we wrap up cycle 1 at PBA, we can reflect on an exciting first few months of school with traditions and festivities back in full force including all school camp, Lighting Our Way, and the return of RSG students to name just a few. Please join us on this photo tour to view more of our special moments!

Students in Buddhist Club participate in the international “Ring Your Bell for Peace Day” event. Ringers from Japan, Maui, Big Island, and Oahu joined together on zoom to raise awareness about the International Day of Peace.

Sophomore Geometry students created and tested their popsicle bridges in Mr. Curry’s geometry class. The bridge constructed by Riho Umitani, Alexandra Keating, and Kaya Blum held the most weight of 88 pounds!

PBA alumna Lia Sutton, dances hula with six students visiting PBA from Japan through the Ryukoku Sogo Gakuen program.

JV XC Championships. XC is a battle of attrition, as many runners have a difficult time finishing the season. The same was true of PBA this year. We had three runners race in the JV Champs, our final race of the season. But all three had significant achievements.

  • David Burkett had a season-best time of 25:04.4, improving over the course of the season by 1:01.
  • Alexandra Keating achieved a personal-best time of 32:16, improving her personal record by 26 seconds.
  • Rintaro Kawai achieved a personal-best time of 23:37.7, improving his personal record by 46.1 seconds and his season time by 1:55.7.
  • Some other runners to call out for their season improvement: Riho Umitani improved her season time by 39.6 seconds; Mone Sugimoto by 43.4 seconds; and Oren Mihara wins the most improved banner this year improving his season time by 4:47.1.

A shout out to other runners that participated this year and who we hope will return to running next season. Addison Hernandez, Emma Hernandez, Lyla Onishi, and Jolie Rapoza. We also had JP out for a workout one day, Evan Derauf and Paulo Sarbida out for a few workouts, and hope to return James Robinson to running in his senior year!

PBA’s Social Committee hosted its first Friday Night Social of the 22-23 school year with the BBQ & a Movie event on Friday, August 26. We aren’t certain how closely students watched Spiderman: No Way Home and Belle – many students seemed more interested in the freeze tag game that occupied the latter third of the evening – but the burgers were yummy, the pescatarians went luxe with salmon burgers, and the chaperones were tuckered out by the end of the evening, mission accomplished!

  • Congratulations to Rintaro Kawai and Evan Yasutake, who debated for the first time in the Public Forum event. Their resolution: Resolved: the U.S. federal government should invest heavily in high speed rail. They had two matches and debated strongly
  • Congratulations to Colin Hanney, who debated for the first time in the Lincoln Douglas event. The resolution: Resolved: The United States ought to implement a single-payer universal healthcare system.
  • Congratulations to Alexandra Keating, who debated for the first time in the Lincoln Douglas event. The resolution: Resolved: The United States ought to implement a single-payer universal healthcare system. Alexandra soundly won both of her second ballots Rd 2: 27-24 & 24-19

Sophomore Riho Umitani, seen here preparing for her speech entry in the Original Oratory event for the October 1 HSL Speech Tournament, would go on to win “Superior” ratings for her performance of the original speech “Supersize Me: the problem of sexualization in animé.”

Sophomore Rylan Villamor and senior Breydon Gono continue their Pac-Five varsity football season with a 6 p.m. game against Damien Memorial School at Radford HS on Friday, October 22. They are coached by PBA math teacher and athletic director Kena Heffernan. They will be joined by freshman cheerleader Winnie Crawford, who will complete with the Pac-Five varsity cheer squad in the ILH Championships on Friday, October 21 at Kamehameha Schools.

Mari Miyasato anchors the PBA girls bowling co-op team with St. Andrews School as they head into the Jared Kaufmann Memorial Singles Tournament today at Fort Shafter. The PBA team is coached by PBA alumna Kiana Tom ’14.

Students worked together building their tents for the first night at the all-school camp.

To deepen our sense of community and understand the impact we can have to the people around us, the senior class organized several community service outings, one of which was to help the Aiea Hongwanji Mission where they picked up trash and pulled weeds as well as trimmed back some overgrowth.

The PBA student news and lifestyle magazine Karma Chronicle released its Fall 22 digital issue on Wednesday, October 19. KC advisor Ms. Paris Hitchcock said “I am very proud of the work the student journalists did, and we’re excited to distribute the final product to the PBA sangha, including the larger community of readers of the What’s New. KC is a student-directed publication with features written about the real-life interests of their readership. The student journalists edit everything themselves, from the layout of the magazine to the copy of the articles and images. I am so happy for them!”

Students participated in a pineapple carving fundraiser and service project in collaboration with Eco Rotary of Kaka`ako to help raise funds for the Rotary International Polio+ Fund. For over 35 years, Rotary has been working to eradicate polio and keep countries polio-free.

Mr. Curry’s advisory won the advisory ping pong tournament this month. Congratulations to sophomores Evan Derauf for coming in first place and Paulo Sarbida for coming in second!

PBA celebrated Dr. Nancy Atmospera-Walch, Dr. David Lassner, Pieper and Lois Toyama, and Pacific American Foundation for their selfless community achievements. Guests gathered at the Wai`alae Country Club on October 7 to honor them and 20 years of enlightened learning at PBA. Thank you to all our generous donors and sponsors for all their support to make this night possible. We appreciate all that you do to encourage peace-education!

If you missed our program, it is available to watch on Olelo53 at the following times:

  • 10/21 - 10:00 PM
  • 10/22 - 1:30 PM

1754 Lusitana Street, Honolulu, HI 96813
P (808) 532-2649

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