Maryknoll School celebrating 75th anniversary year-round

By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

Maryknoll School is celebrating its 75th anniversary and will kick off a year of events at its annual Monsignor Charles A. Kekumano Award and Scholarship Dinner on Sunday.

The teachers and staff at Maryknoll School when this photo was taken, around 1927, included the six nuns who founded the institution. The school opened in autumn of 1927 on Wilder Avenue.

Yvonee Morris, director of development at Maryknoll, said Rapozo exemplifies the school's motto of noblesse oblige: "To whom much is given, much is expected."

"The sisters taught us (we) must give back to the community," Morris said. "That has been instilled in the students. For us, celebrating this mission of great education, the service of giving back to the community and thanking the Maryknoll sister who brought it all so long ago is really something."

In September 1927, the ship City of Honolulu docked at Aloha Tower, bringing half a dozen nuns from the Maryknoll Sisters in New York. The six founded Maryknoll School.

Four days after their arrival, they opened the school in a one-story frame building containing four classrooms on Wilder Avenue. On that first day, 93 boys and 77 girls enrolled.

Maryknoll, across from Punahou School, catered to children of local families that could not afford Punahou, Morris said. Since the first graduating high school class in 1935, 6,500 students have earned Maryknoll diplomas.

Today, Maryknoll has about 1,400 students and is the only coed Catholic school with grades from preschool through high school on O'ahu, Morris said.

Janell Beattie, class of 1979, has two children attending Maryknoll. Her daughter, Danielle, is in the class of 2006, and her son, Christian, will graduate this year. Her mother, Edwina Goo, graduated from the school in 1940.

Beattie said Maryknoll challenges her children to work hard and be active in the community.

"Maryknoll is a good school and I wanted my children to get a good education," Beattie said. "My mother is really proud of them going to Maryknoll. We had no computers when I went to school there and they are up to date with technology now."

Students do not have to be Catholic to attend Maryknoll, but special consideration is given to children of alumni, siblings of current Maryknoll students and Catholic families.

Maryknoll priests always served as the head of the school until 1996, when the board of trustees selected Michael Baker as the first lay president.

The award dinner at the Hilton Hawaiian Village will include performances by Mahi Beamer, Iwalani Kahalewai, Bill Kaiwa, Boyce Rodrigues, Auntie Genoa Keawe, Tony Conjugacion, Beverly Noa, Hiram Olsen Trio, Marlene Sai and Joe Recca.

Tickets are $100. For more information, call 952-7310.

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.