Konawaena teacher wins national Milken award

By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

KEALAKEKUA, Hawai'i — A veteran teacher known statewide as "Ms. Middle School" yesterday received a $25,000 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award for her role in helping establish Konawaena Middle School.

Georgia Goeas, who has been on the Kona faculty for 23 years, said she was "shocked" when acting state school superintendent Patricia Hamamoto said she was the winner.

But her students were not surprised. Some were calling out her name before Hamamoto brought her forward to accept many lei and much praise during the outdoor ceremony.

Principal Nancy Soderberg described Goeas as a mentor to other faculty. She said Goeas always showed "compassion for middle school students."

Parents and other teachers joined the gathering along with her brother, John Kurasaki, of O'ahu.

Goeas said the award made her proud because "we made this (the separate school next to Konawaena High School) for you guys — a place where students want to come to school every day."

Soderberg said of Goeas: "She will meet a student any time, any place if the need is there."

That was echoed by Sandie Dela Cruz, whose son, Andrew, was helped by Goeas last year.

"She wants so much for the kids to succeed. She loves the kids," said Dela Cruz.

Cari Kojima, a Kealakehe Elementary School teacher and a former Milken winner, attended to present a clutch of pink roses and to thank her for tutoring her daughter.

The somewhat frazzled winner told the gathering of more than 200 seventh- and eighth-graders, "You have no idea what the insides of me look like now."

Goeas said it was surprising that she became a teacher because she did not do well early in school and preferred to stay home. She credited a middle school teacher on O'ahu with instilling in her the patience she needed to excel.

By the time she was attending Saint Francis School on O'ahu, she was helping other students with their work.

After teacher training at University of Hawai'i-Manoa, she taught for three years on Guam and another year at Stevenson Intermediate on O'ahu before moving to South Kona.

"I already had fallen in love with eighth-graders," said Goeas, who now is teaching the children of many of her first Kona students.

She said one appeal of being around eighth-graders is that they serve as "a mirror of what's new." Her students teach her each year about society's changes.

She said she had no notion yesterday of how she would spend her cash award. However, she insisted she would not buy a new flashy car as many of her students quickly suggested she do.