Island People
Miss Hawaii director finds his joy in teaching
| • | Crown comes with sisterly love |
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
In 1969, when Ray Abregano was in the midst of a year of seclusion in a Santa Cruz, Calif., monastery, he stole away with another brother to the main residence, where they committed a wee sin: They switched on the TV.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
It hardly mattered what was on. The apprentices were barred from all TV, radio and other media for the whole year. (Abregano only learned that people had landed on the moon that year because he lined the rubbish bins with old papers that told him so.)
Miss Hawaii Pageant producer/director Ray Abregano rehearsed the contestants in the swimsuit segment in mid-June. Abregano is a theater buff as well as an English teacher at St. Louis School.
As luck would have it, the Miss California pageant was on. Abregano was delighted to watch, though the current producer/director of the Miss Hawaii Pageant wouldn't recognize the historical irony for a good many years.
Finally, in a burst of guilty angst, he switched the TV off, accidentally popping off the knob in the process, panicked and fled. Abregano shook his head and laughed.
"I always tell my students, 'Never sneak away. Always tell your parents where you're going.'" He grinned. "Do as I say; don't do as I do."
Nice to know, isn't it, that the St. Louis School Teacher of the Year has a sense of humor?
It's a helpful trait in navigating a life that's as busy as this: teacher, pageant director, mentor. Abregano can't bear giving any of it up. Not the thrill of shepherding young women through the pageant process every year. Not the hours of rehearsal, either with the Miss Hawaii contestants or the St. Louis boys he funnels toward the talent show he produces every year. Not the faith that sustains him despite his decision in 1978 to leave the life of a Marianist brother.
But above all, he'll never give up the classroom. Teaching, in one form or another, is at the heart of everything he does.
"When we decide on the Teacher of the Year, we're looking at competence in the classroom," said St. Louis principal Burton Tomita. "Are the students benefiting from Mr. Abregano's teaching? Is he involved in clubs, things outside the classroom? The students grow in both ways."
Abregano, 51, is kicking back just a bit, now that the June 15 pageant is well behind him and the Sept. 22 Miss America competition lies ahead. But just a bit. The end of another academic year has brought little quiet to his St. Louis English classroom, because Abregano is teaching summer school, as well.
It's the same classroom that Benny Agbayani occupied and even visited one day after his baseball star had risen.
"He told the students, 'I sat at that desk, right over there, and Mr. Abregano gave me an 'A,'" he recalled. "He laughed, and so did I." There was an "A" in Agbayani's name, he said, but not on his report card.
Ray Abregano
Age: 51
Born: Wahiawa
Family: Single; the third of six children
Occupation: St. Louis School English teacher; producer/director, Miss Hawaii Pageant
Honors from the school: Teacher of the Year, 2001; Pa'aluli Disciplinary Award, 2000: Okita Award, 2000, enabling him to attend the beatification of Father Chaminade in September, performing chant and hula at the ceremony
A low point: The death of his sister, Monalyn Hochuli, to cancer, in 1987
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A high point: Hearing Angela Baraquio say, "Happy birthday, Ray!" as the new Miss America walked down the ramp Oct. 14
Oh, well. English composition can't be everyone's strong suit. But sometimes Abregano can uncover a talent or passion for something that will inspire their writing. Even Agbayani once wrote a poetic tribute to his mother that the teacher kept for many years.
"I like to identify what their strengths are, and channel them in the right direction," Abregano said. "I see a kid and find out he likes to play guitar. The following year, I will put them in the talent show ... we can alter their whole self-image."
He clearly feels comfortable with kids. On the day before the Miss Hawaii Pageant, he buzzed around the stage and runway in the Hilton Hawaiian Village ballroom, as technicians tweaked the lighting and TV directors barked out orders on the P.A. system. Abregano, a 15-year veteran with Robert Cazimero's Halau Na Kamalei, prompted the young dancers from the Kamehameha Schools' hula school who would appear in the pageant.
Then he turned his attention to the smaller keiki enlisted to quiz each contestant and probe her ability to think on her feet ("We do this because Miss Hawaii spends 75 percent of her time with children," Abregano explained later). One of them wasn't standing in quite the right spot near emcee Howard Dashevsky. "OK, Baby, watch!" Abregano told the girl. "Go in the back of Uncle."
Abregano has worked with stagecraft since he was a brother, helping to direct shows with his students at St. Anthony's School on Maui, stealing away during summer sessions on O'ahu to enroll in dance classes downtown. The time that theater drew him away from the Marianist community, he said, was the reason he decided he no longer could fulfill his duty to the order. Still, the years since his first Miss Hawaii pageant in 1982 have been a long learning curve.
"You should see the early videotapes!" he said. "We had no theme, the lighting was bad, it was long ... back then it was, 'More is better!'"
The constraints of TV (the pageant was first televised in 1984) forced him to hone the show more tightly. And as for manpower, Abregano somehow finds helpmates among his students and faculty colleagues, several of whom volunteer with the crew.
One is Tim los Banos, another English teacher who admits to being preferred by students hoping to slack off a bit ("They know I'm the easy guy, and Mr. Abregano is hard," he said). Los Banos works every year as Abregano's assistant at the pageant. "He drags you in," he added, laughing. "Somehow, he gets everyone involved."
But Los Banos pointed out several occasions when Abregano has been offered full-time jobs producing shows but has always refused.
"He gives his heart and soul to the students," he said. "I graduated from there, and I'm not nearly as devoted to the school as he is."
