{"id":18561,"date":"2026-02-11T07:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/?p=18561"},"modified":"2026-02-17T13:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:40:14","slug":"2026-alumni-spotlight-kaina-makua-waimea-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/2026-alumni-spotlight-kaina-makua-waimea-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight: Kaina Makua (Waimea High School)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kaina Makua<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Occupation: <\/strong>Executive director and co-founder of Kumano I Ke Ala
What school you grad? <\/strong>Waimea High School \u201802
College:<\/strong> Kapi\u02bbolani Community College, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa
Location: <\/strong>Waimea, HI<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaua\u2018i native Kaina Makua is a kalo farmer, cultural practitioner, community educator and the co-founder of Kumano I Ke Ala, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing West Kaua\u02bbi through the restoration of native lands, food system transformation, workforce training and youth development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, he was coaching \u0e42\u0e23\u0e07\u0e40\u0e23\u0e35\u0e22\u0e19\u0e21\u0e31\u0e18\u0e22\u0e21\u0e44\u0e27\u0e40\u0e21\u0e2d\u0e32<\/strong>\u2019s paddling team at the state championships in Hanalei, when actor Jason Momoa noticed him and told him that he wanted Makua to be a part of a passion project he was working on. With no prior acting experience, he was later cast as King Kamehameha I in the series \u201cChief of War,\u201d<\/a> which premiered in August on Apple TV. The series tells the story of Ka\u02bbiana (Momoa), a fearless warrior on a mission to unite his homeland as a monumental power struggle erupts among the four Hawaiian kingdoms in the late 18th century. It was filmed in Hawai\u2018i and New Zealand and features extensive dialogue in \u02bb\u014dlelo Hawai\u02bbi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI constantly had to keep trying to convince him to play it,\u201d Momoa said in an interview with the TODAY show.<\/a> \u201cAnd he killed it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What was your journey like after high school?<\/strong>
\u0e01: <\/strong>As soon as summer was finished, I was gone. I moved to O\u2018ahu. I went to Kapi\u02bbolani Community College for two years then transferred to University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa. I got my bachelor\u2019s degree in Hawaiian Studies, furthered my education and I got into the MEdT teaching program. I got a teaching certificate. I became a certified teacher in secondary education and my focus was Hawaiian language. I did that for four years on O\u2018ahu then moved home. I taught at Kawaikini Public Charter School for four years, until I felt like I could do more with the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What are you up to these days?<\/strong>
\u0e01: <\/strong>I co-founded Kumano I Ke Ala with Davis Price. Kumano I Ke Ala exists to elevate indigenous knowledge to revitalize traditional food systems to save the world. We have over 100 acres of land. We spend a lot of money on interns as farmers, trying to teach them the same components and traits of makahiki\u2014work ethic, responsibility, belonging, financial literacy and how to speak in public. They do it at a very young age. We have a staff of 15 full-timers and 10 part-timers. We\u2019re just trying to build something that no one has ever seen that\u2019s going to help support our community and bring back instill all the things we\u2019ve been talking about for good humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What makes you #PublicSchoolProud?<\/strong>
\u0e01:<\/strong> I never really understood the \u201cprivate\u201d and \u201cpublic\u201d school relationship much. I\u2019m just proud that I\u2019m from Kaua\u2018i. I\u2019m proud that I\u2019m from Hawai\u02bbi. I\u2019m proud that I can help the community in some way. I\u2019m proud that now when the world sees \u201cChief of War,\u201d they are also going to see Kaua\u2018i. They\u2019re going to also see and hear the stories of Kaua\u2018i, because of that level of cinematography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Favorite school lunch or breakfast?<\/strong>
\u0e01: <\/strong>My favorite breakfast was Portuguese sausage and rice. My favorite lunch was pizza pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Name of a teacher or mentor you\u2019d like to thank?<\/strong>
\u0e01: <\/strong>I\u2019d like to thank a bunch of them, but for Waimea High School in particular, there\u2019s two guys: Scott Suga and Greg Harding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What type of extracurricular activities were you involved in?<\/strong>
\u0e01:<\/strong> I competed in paddling my senior year, which was the inaugural year for paddling as a sport. I was on the swim team for my junior and senior year and I also did surfing. I’ve been the paddling coach for Waimea High School for the past 14 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What advice do you have for students?<\/strong>
\u0e01:<\/strong> You don\u2019t need to go to college to be \u201csomebody.\u201d But how will you help your community?<\/em> How do you contribute and bring value to the lives of others instead of just yourself? Don\u2019t live for just yourself. You should be living for everybody. If everyone had that mindset, imagine the things we could do.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kaina Makua Occupation: Executive director and co-founder of Kumano I Ke AlaWhat school you grad? Waimea High School \u201802College: Kapi\u02bbolani Community College, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noaLocation: Waimea, HI Kaua\u2018i native Kaina Makua is a kalo farmer, cultural practitioner, community educator and the co-founder of Kumano I Ke Ala, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing West […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18564,"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":"856,888,893,1022,1619,1622","_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":[59,22,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-spotlight","category-hoohaaheo","category-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":59,"label":"Alumni Spotlight"},{"value":22,"label":"Ho\u2018oha\u2018aheo"},{"value":21,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ChiefOfWar_Photo_010508-featured-image-1024x427.jpg",1024,427,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Kim Yuen","author_link":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/author\/kimberly-yuenk12-hi-us\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":59,"name":"Alumni Spotlight","slug":"alumni-spotlight","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":59,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":22,"count":16,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":59,"category_count":16,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Alumni Spotlight","category_nicename":"alumni-spotlight","category_parent":22},{"term_id":22,"name":"Ho\u2018oha\u2018aheo","slug":"hoohaaheo","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":69,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":22,"category_count":69,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Ho\u2018oha\u2018aheo","category_nicename":"hoohaaheo","category_parent":0},{"term_id":21,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":21,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":308,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":21,"category_count":308,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 10:20:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"post_status","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiipublicschools.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}