ONE HUNDRED THIRTY AND GOING STRONG

Waiahole School, the rural Oahu elementary school I attended for nine years, celebrated its 130th anniversary this September.
When begun in 1883, Hawaii was a royal kingdom ruled by King Kalakaua, and it was during his rule Waiahole School was begun as “an English language school… on September 17…”
Between 1932-1961, there was always one or more of my eight siblings and I attending the school we still share fond memories of as aging adults.
Situated in the lush Waiahole Valley, where archival papers report was once home to five rice fields that got water from the many streams, later harnessed by the Waiahole Water Tunnel that fed the pineapple plantations on the lee of the Koolau Mountain Range, the school was a community center to the small village of truck farmers and blue collar workers. It was a mile from the two-lane Kamehameha Highway that skirts the windward side of the island, and often the first school for newly minted teachers who commuted from Honolulu. Usually a veteran teacher and the principal lived in the teachers’ cottages behind the school.
When I attended between 1942-1951, Hawaii was a territory of the United States. After King Kalakaua’s death shortly after the school’s inception, his sister Queen Liliuokalani succeeded him, but within a few years she was overthrown and the Republic of Hawaii was established in 1893. The United States annexed it as a territory in 1900.
In 1942 the territory was under martial law after Pearl Harbor was bombed, and so we were never taught the historical aspects of our school, the war effort taking precedence over everything else. And perhaps thought unimportant, we continued on with contemporary events instead of being taught our school’s rich history.
So in 1983 I was astonished to learn it celebrated its 100th anniversary! And now this year I was nudged into remembering thirty years had passed and a big celebration was planned.
I didn’t attend the celebration, but sent three stories to contribute toward the commemorative booklet, and learned one was included. I won’t know which story dealing with happy memories such as working in the cafeteria, going to school barefooted, or celebrating May Day is included until I receive the booklet a classmate promised me he’d send.
When Waiahole School began students from the region of about a ten-mile radius attended. During my time, the school had two long wood buildings housing the office, a library, a home ec room with kitchenettes, and several classrooms; three separate bungalow classroom buildings, a cafeteria, and a cottage-like classroom that had been there from an earlier era. We thought the school of approximately 350 pupils “big” as we were rural kids not used to large numbers of persons together in one place. The large yard was our playing field, and we gathered at the steps of the office for assemblies.
Last year my husband and I visited the campus, and it was entirely different from what I remembered. Gone were all the wooden structures, replaced by brick and plaster buildings, gone the teachers’ and principal’s cottages. All the kids wore footwear, a contrast to my barefoot days.
When I attended, it was a k_9 school, but now K-6. On rainy days we ran from one building to another to avoid getting wet, but at the new facility, there are overhangs and concrete walkways everywhere. The only remnant I recognized was the drinking of three outlets that was in front of what had been the oldest little classroom. The student body had shrunken to about seventy, but they were still of ethnic minorities as when I attended.
Waiahole was once owned by a large estate and lots leased to residents, but about forty years ago, a developer bought it with the plan to build tracts of houses. Fearing that would cause a loss of the rural style of living, activist farmers and former students involved with the state Legislature fought hard to keep that from happening. Rallies were held, letters and petitions sent, and finally the State bought the land and gave long-term leases to the residents. The rural characteristics remain, the community and school vibrant,
It’s said, “you can’t go home again,” and if buildings are the benchmark, that’s very true, but otherwise, Waiahole School continues undiminished through the third century from its inception under royal kingdom, the Republic, the territory and now statehood.