It was a day that changed Molokai forever.

It was also a day that Matt Helm cannot forget, and he is making sure the teens he now guides will remember.
Twenty years ago today, a plane carrying 20 people, including eight players on the Molokai High School boys and girls volleyball teams, girls coach Odetta Reyes Rapanot and athletic director John Ino, went down in heavy clouds on the way home from Maui, at the cliffs near Halawa Valley.
Everyone on board perished, including Helm's sister Natalie, a 15-year-old sophomore on the girls team that had just qualified for the state tournament.
The current Farmers are back at the state tournament that begins today in Honolulu, as the No. 2 seed in the New City Nissan Division II state championships.
Matt Helm, who was a freshman at the University of Hawaii when he received word of the crash, is now the coach of the touted Farmers. The team's warm-up shirts bear the number of that flight, 1712, and the Farmers also wear a patch with that number on their game uniforms.
Befitting the extended family that is the island of Molokai, the idea to wear the flight number was a collaborative effort.
''Interesting enough, it was it was kind of everybody,'' Helm said. ''A lot of the community were asking what we were going to do for the 20th anniversary. I didn't think anything, but really it is educating the kids, educating these kids who weren't even alive.''
It has led to an understanding of just what happened that night. The school's teams now ride a ferry for Maui Interscholastic League away games — the Farmers joined the league in 1984.
''I wanted the girls to understand and have conversation about it, so putting the number, a lot of people didn't know what it was,'' Helm said. ''A lot of conversation was created by the people who were asking about the 1712. That conversation allowed our girls to be able to voice their knowledge about it.''
The current Farmers know about the history of the crash because, before the beginning of each season, Helm takes them to the cemetery where many of the victims are buried.
''Just so they know what the history, the tradition is on Molokai,'' Helm said. ''It is obviously special to my heart because my sister was on the plane. We do this every year. The 20th anniversary is big for the community, but we want to recognize that these (current) players from Molokai High are the same age as these girls were back 20 years ago. A lot of these girls' mothers played Molokai High School volleyball.''
In a chicken-skin exercise earlier this season, Helm asked five members of his team to stand on one side of the court while the rest stood on the other.
''I said, 'Just imagine these girls gone,' '' he said of the five. '' 'And I'm gone, too. And your AD is gone. Now you have to go play a state tournament.' We talk about adversity, we talk about some of the things we struggle through and we say, 'Hey, is this really, really that bad?' ''
The Farmers finished fourth last season and return virtually every significant player from that team, including middle blocker Kalei Adolpho and outside hitter Danna-Lynn Hooper-Juario. That pair led the Farmers to the D-II state basketball crown in February.
Adolpho, a 6-foot-1 junior, committed to a scholarship to play volleyball and basketball at UH — she is the first girl from the school to ever commit to an NCAA Division I athletic scholarship — and Hooper-Juario is being recruited by several schools to play basketball.
Helm feels his team can contend for just the fourth state team championship in school history, to go with the basketball title and state baseball crowns in 1999 and 2000.
Standing in the way could be two-time defending state champion and No. 1 seed Hawaii Baptist Academy.
''I like to think so, you know going into it you have got to have that mentality or else why even go?'' Helm said. ''We all know HBA is the returning state champs, they have an outstanding team. We still have a lot of work to do and we know that and that keeps us grounded.''
Helm was trying out for the UH men's volleyball team as a freshman when he got word of the crash. He left school at the end of the semester to return to the Friendly Isle and later was a standout player at the University of LaVerne in California.
''I remember we were watching the UH-BYU (football) game and that is when it happened,'' Helm said. ''As soon as it happened I went home for about two weeks. I finished the semester, but I didn't want to go back (to UH) after that.''
Helm graduated from college in 1994, stayed in California for 12 years and came back to Molokai in 2002. He has been a counselor at Molokai High and Intermediate School and coaching the girls volleyball team ever since.
''Oh, gosh, I think that is one of the reasons why I coach girls sports,'' he said. ''We were very close in age, we were four years apart. She was a bubbly character, very social, very outgoing, kind of a rebel in a sense.''
Helm and his wife, Erika, have three children — sons Kahili, 9, and Kahiau, 3, and daughter Noelani, 8, named after her aunt.
''My daughter reminds us a lot of (Natalie),'' Helm said. ''We visit the grave often. When my kids were young they all saw her, either playing pretend or whatever. My youngest, we were driving recently and he said, 'Oh, there is Auntie Natalie in the tree.' It kind of blows us away, but all of them at one time or another have seen her. It is an awesome feeling.''
The current members of the team have learned the lessons of the tragedy.
''I was a freshman when I first found out,'' said Kawena Puhi, now a junior setter. ''They took us up to the graveyard. Coach's sister was one of them in the crash, so we went and paid our respects on the anniversary. This year we went up at the beginning of the year and they told us the story again and emotions were out, so it means a lot to us to represent this number on our back. I think people respect us because of that number and people ask us all the time about it. It does motivate us on the court.''
Adolpho said the 20th anniversary has made this season special.
''We know that they crashed right after they won the MIL tournament to go to states,'' she said. ''We are really trying to use it as an inspiration. If that team can go to states with seven players or whatever, that's adversity and we can overcome whatever happens. Coach tells us to live life because you don't know what is going to happen, so you really want to do whatever you can every day.
''When you are really down and you look at that patch you think, 'What I am going through is nothing.' ''
Their coach always makes sure that this team stays in the present.
''This is their time,'' he said. ''I'm not too keen on overdoing 1712. We just say 'Remember.' ''