Old School Spirit

More than three decades after being abandoned to the elements, vandals and arson, Maui’s first public high school is kindling a passion for renewal.

But while those graduates helped shape Maui’s history, the island itself was changing. The closing of plantation camps had shifted the population to Central Maui. In 1972, Maui High’s faculty and staff, its students and programs, relocated to Kahului. Left to weeds and vandals, the old campus deteriorated. Teachers’ cottages, athletic buildings and fields were lost to fire or bulldozers. The agriculture program’s orchard, with dozens of fruit-tree varieties, died of old age and neglect. The auditorium known as “the Barn,” where young thespians had performed, where prom dancers swayed cheek-to-cheek and graduates had marched, burned down in 2001.
   
Most disturbing of all was the loss of the beautiful old administration building. Its library was taken over by a banyan tree. Weeds sprang up on the front lawn, the roof collapsed and graffiti defaced the walls.
   
But the spirit of old Maui High still lives. Last September, more than 1,200 graduates returned for a grand reunion organized by the Friends of Old Maui High and co-chaired by alumni Rodney Inciong and Richard Higashi. Participants traveled from as far as Germany and Japan, some to greet friends they had not seen since high school. For three days, that throng filled the country campus and walked its open-roofed halls, hugging classmates and remembering days of friendship and learning. Cheerleaders led by Sylvia Harima, class of 1945, shook blue-and-white pom-poms, and a couple of graduates from the 1960s demonstrated that they could still do the splits. Alumni sang the alma mater (composed by a French teacher in 1919) with a band made up of young musicians from the new Maui High in Kahului and old-timers whose initial reaction to the idea had been, “You gotta be joking! I nevah touch my instrument for ovah forty years!” At least one graduate was moved to tears. “I never thought I’d hear that song played at this school again,” said Barbara Tanner, class of ’56.
   
People really care about this school—not only those whose school spirit lingers long after they received their diplomas, but also newcomers who are entranced by its architecture and history. Barbara Long, president of the Friends of Old Maui High School, is one of these. She was among a couple of dozen Mauians who responded to a call in 2003 from Community Work Day Director Jan Dapitan to begin the enormous effort of revitalizing the twenty-three-acre campus.