Kahuku High's 'We the People' team earns honorable mention

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer

Kahuku High School students earned an honorable mention last night after advancing into the top 10 in a national competition that tested their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Kahuku High and Intermediate School was among 51 groups that vied in "We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution" in Virginia and Washington, D.C., last weekend.

Students at East Brunswick High School in New Jersey took first place and a class from Grant High School in Portland, Ore., took second. Kahuku shared its honorable mention with six other schools.

Kahuku has participated in 11 of the past 12 "We the People" competitions, beating out competitors in its Hawai'i congressional district and at the state-wide level. In the past two national contests they made it to the top 10.

"We're pretty darn proud just to finish in the top 10," said Barry Markowitz, whose daughter Catalina Salafai Markowitz is on the Kahuku team. Markowitz said the students practiced daily and that practice would "carry over into their studies and their careers."

In the competition students demonstrate their knowledge of the Constitution before a simulated congressional committee made up of constitutional scholars, lawyers, journalists and government leaders.

Students prepared for the event by applying the principles of the documents to current events, said Kahuku principal Lisa DeLong.

"It's a high level of sophistication, their understanding," DeLong said. "They really understand it well and are able to apply it to a lot of situations."

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.