Salutes • Grants and awards
Big Isle, O'ahu students show off driving skills
Advertiser Staff
Big Island and O'ahu high schools took the top awards in the 14th annual statewide Tesoro Hawaii Operation Driver Excellence competition held at Radford High School and Aloha Stadium. Students in the Department of Education's driver education program participated. The winners are: Justin Vierra, Waiakea High, first place; Eric Paopao, Hilo High, second place; Matthew Hashimoto, Roosevelt High, third place.
The winning students' driver education teachers were Wayne Yamauchi, Agnes Yamauchi and Glenn Sasaki.
• Cheryl Haban, an eighth grader at Lana'i High and Elementary School, is the grand prize winner of the 2001 Hawai'i Pizza Hut and Hawai'i State Public Library System Young Adult Summer Reading Shopping Spree Sweepstakes. She learned of her good fortune during what was supposed to be a routine class visit to the library.
Lynn Matsumoto of the public libraries presented Cheryl with a pizza delivery box containing a congratulatory letter announcing her as the winner of a $1,000 shopping spree at Pearlridge Center.
A regular user of Lana'i Public and School Library, Cheryl had read 15 books during the library's young adult summer reading program. She came to Hawai'i from the Philippines in 1997.
Kari Kawakami, who will be a sophomore at Castle High and the Kane'ohe Public Library entrant, received second prize, a $500 shopping spree.
Third place winner was Douglas Lautalo, who will be a freshman at McKinley High School. The winner of a $250 shopping spree, he entered at Liliha Public Library.
The Hawai'i State Public Library conducts the only statewide reading program for teens in the nation.
• Kolea Zimmerman, a teenager from Volcano, Hawai'i, spent a week in July learning about research projects at the Marine Science Institute of UC Santa Barbara. It was part of his prize as national winner of the Discovery Young Scientist Challenge.
His winning project arose out of his interest in studying wild mushrooms and other fungi. He designed an experiment that would test the antibacterial properties of the fungi Xylariaceae. He discovered that 11 forms of the fungi tested had antibiotic properties.
His prize included a tour of the institute with a focus on the study of bioluminescent plankton and innovative approaches to tracking the movement of fish. He boarded a research vessel studying the effects of ocean currents on the distribution of marine fish and invertebrates.
A research expedition to Santa Cruz Island allowed him to explore research projects in both marine and terrestrial ecology in the unique ecosystems of the Channel Islands.
Zimmerman is to be a sophomore at Waiakea High School in Hilo.
He aspires to a career in science engineering, where he can apply his love of electronic devices.
