{"id":9791,"date":"2024-05-26T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T21:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/?p=9791"},"modified":"2025-03-21T11:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T21:04:10","slug":"2024-graduation-night-marks-end-of-emotional-four-year-journey-for-lahainalunas-class-of-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/2024-graduation-night-marks-end-of-emotional-four-year-journey-for-lahainalunas-class-of-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation night marks end of emotional four-year journey for Lahainaluna\u2019s Class of 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LAHAINA \u2014 Lahainaluna High School\u2019s Class of 2024 celebrated the end of an emotional four-year journey, with 216 seniors receiving their diplomas Sunday night at the Sue D. Cooley Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fifteen students, who were displaced by the fires to other high schools, also walked with their classmates to celebrate graduation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>M. Jee Abara, one of Lahainaluna\u2019s 36 valedictorians, delivered the class speech. Abara is Lahainaluna\u2019s first student to graduate with an associate\u2019s degree from the University of Hawai\u2018i Maui College in Liberal Arts along with a high school diploma through the school\u2019s dual credit program. He plans to attend UH West O\u2018ahu to study Disaster Preparedness &amp; Emergency Management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the presentation of the diplomas, alumni from the class of 2024 and volunteers led the traditional lighting of the \u201cL\u201d on Pu\u2018u Pa\u2018upa\u2018u above the campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the singing of the alma mater, graduates and families were treated to a surprise drone light show by Sky Elements and sponsored by the Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii (DCAH). The DCAH raised over $1 million to support Lahainaluna student-athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The University of Hawai\u2018i has offered full scholarships to every Lahainaluna senior in the Class of 2024 that would cover tuition, fees, books and supplies for full-time and part-time students at any of UH\u2019s 10 campuses. Seventy-five Lahainaluna seniors have committed to attending UH baccalaureate campuses on four-year scholarships, including 72 to the University of Hawai\u2018i at M\u0101noa, two to UH Hilo and one to UH West Oahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In total, Lahainaluna seniors earned $3.3 million in scholarships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The graduates\u2019 four-year high school journey was bookended with the COVID-19 pandemic their freshman year and the deadly Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires that struck the day before the start of their senior year. The fire displaced over 3,000 students from four Lahaina public schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Immediately after the devastation, while the Lahainaluna campus was closed, students temporarily enrolled in other educational options, including sharing campus facilities with K\u016blanih\u0101ko\u02bbi High School in Kihei for about a month before the school welcomed students back for full in-person learning to the historic campus in mid-October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LAHAINA \u2014 Lahainaluna High School\u2019s Class of 2024 celebrated the end of an emotional four-year journey, with 216 seniors receiving their diplomas Sunday night at the Sue D. Cooley Stadium. Fifteen students, who were displaced by the fires to other high schools, also walked with their classmates to celebrate graduation.&nbsp; M. Jee Abara, one of [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","wp_popup_display_lightbox":0,"wp_popup_suppress":"","wp_popup_trigger":"","wp_popup_trigger_amount":0,"wp_popup_disable_on_mobile":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":21,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Chanel Honda","author_link":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/author\/chanel-hondak12-hi-us\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":21,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":21,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":305,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":21,"category_count":305,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 16:16:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"post_status","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/haw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}