The 2011-12 Lahainaluna High School HOSA National Team includes (from left): junior Vincent Magno, who qualified in the CPR/First Aid event; junior Marella Galace (Medical Assisting); junior Christine Mariano (CPR/First Aid); senior Lorrie Dumayas (Veterinary Science); junior Brittany Treu (Job Seeking Skills); sophomore Ho‘o Cabanilla (Extemporaneous Speaking); junior Leslie Garo (Prepared Speaking); junior Paige Cajudoy (Pharmacology); sophomore Kirsten Gilchrist (Extemporaneous Writing); junior Gaylord Garcia (Prepared Speaking); and senior Amanda Arakawa (Sports Medicine).

HOSA STUDENTS SEEK DONATIONS

We are students of the Health and Medical Services Pathway at Lahainaluna High School. We have chosen this pathway because we are interested in pursuing a job in healthcare. Besides engaging in a challenging curriculum at LHS, we have volunteered at blood drives, Lokahi project, Relay for Life, Caregiver’s Walk, Teen Expo, UNICEF, Hoops for Heart and other services that expose us to the wellness of the community. We have career shadowed and interned amongst many medical facilities on Maui.

If you are a healthcare worker, you are probably familiar with HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America). If not, it’s like DECA, FFA, FCCLA and national organizations that provide competitive events and service opportunities for students interested in those particular careers. HOSA is a prestigious organization that involves over 100,000 students interested in healthcare nationwide. Our team has been proudly qualifying students each year since 2005.

This past year, our young team qualified 11 students to the National Leadership Conference. We will be traveling to Orlando, Florida this June 18-25 to compete in our respective events. Here, we will compete against students nationwide who have advanced past their own district and state conferences. Over 3,000 students compete in over 50 medical-related and leadership events. A total of over 5,000 people (chaperones, judges, council) will attend this conference. It is a true experience of a lifetime! This year, we have been quoted $1,500 (airfare, ground transportation, registration, workshops, activities, food).

We are seeking donations from community members and organizations who understand how important healthcare is and consider this as an investment as we are the future of healthcare. If you would like to help fund our trip to the national conference (and support the pathway in general), please send your monetary assistance to Lahainaluna High School’s HOSA account. You may also contact our teacher at malia_shimomura@notes.k12.hi.us or 662-3979, extension 317 (Malia Shimomura). You may also check out www.hosa.org for more information about HOSA.

You may send checks to LHS HOSA (c/o specific student or general team LHS HOSA), 980 Lahainaluna Road, Lahaina, HI 96761.

We are always seeking mentors to mentor us beyond our current training! Please contact our advisor if you are interested!

LHS HOSA NATIONAL TEAM

STUDY TABLES AT LIBRARY GONE

My wife and I and friends have been coming to Maui for over 30 years. Lahaina Public Library has always been one of our regular stops. Being academics, we have used it as a place of study and writing.

This year, we arrived to find all the study tables removed and replaced with slatted wooden chairs grouped around what looks like low coffee tables. When we inquired about the study tables, we were directed to one child’s table with adult chairs – an uncomfortable and inadequate accommodation to say the least.

Though we are members and have always contributed money and books to the library, we have now been forced to the welcoming tables at Barnes & Nobel. We would much rather be in the old, welcoming, open air Lahaina Library – one with study tables and even, on occasion, bouquets of flowers adorning each space.

We are so disappointed!

MR. & MRS. H. BRUCE BYSON, Kahana

FEED MY SHEEP GAVE ME HOPE

I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Feed My Sheep for helping me during this rough economic time.

I lost my job over a year ago, and had it not been for Feed my Sheep, I would have lost hope in mankind. These kind people offer not only food but prayer as well. They have lifted my spirits when I’ve been really down and out.

So thank you to everyone who volunteers for this wonderful organization. And please know that you are a Godsend, even though you may not get the thanks you dearly deserve.

MARIBEL ROTHFORD

GIVE REAL FARMS TAX BREAKS

According to The Maui News, our County Council is frustrated that their agricultural property tax bill is once again being deferred. What don’t they get? Their ill-conceived proposal will accomplish only two things. First, it will drive up the cost of locally grown food for every person in Maui County. Second, it will continue to give preferential tax treatment, albeit reduced by the amount of land occupied by their mansions, to the millionaire gentlemen farmers. Why does the council want to protect these people?

The real farmers need every tax break they can get to remain profitable and to reduce Maui’s dependence on imported food! The gentlemen farmers do not! The current law and rates are fine as they stand. The problem lies with the lack of physical, as they say “boots on the ground,” assessment of the properties.

One of our council members has told me it is impossible for the tax assessors to actually go out and assess. Weird! That’s what they’re supposed to do!

So, perhaps the real farmers should be required to submit their Federal Income Tax Schedule F, Profit or Loss from Farming forms every year to prove they are actually farmers. Then, any property tax record that does not have a current Schedule F on record must therefore be residential and the property tax should be adjusted to “residential.” Easily verified!

Foolproof! Probably produce more than the currently projected $950,000 tax increase! And, maybe even encourage a little growth in our farming industry!

AL RABOLD, Kula

DEVELOP HONOLUA WISELY

I have lived on and off Maui since 1989, back when Maui Land and Pineapple Co. used to plant pineapples there.

The road back then was rarely paved and was hazardous to drive in wet conditions.

When it rained, and it does there often, the bay would fill itself with Maui’s red dirt, smothering the reef for days on end until the swells would pull it out to sea.

The reef has changed over the years, and so has the wave itself.

Now the land is no longer used, the road gets paved more often and there is moderately less runoff.

Honolua Bay would benefit from having the road upgraded and paved with asphalt.

Have a grass lawn across the road with adequate showers, parking and maybe some homes, too.

Look at Santa Cruz; Steamer Lane’s lighthouse beach park is a beautiful place to visit, watch surfing, shower, hang out and live next to the ocean.

I don’t think we need to stop the development of Honolua Bay – that is inevitable.

It just needs to be done in a way that everyone will benefit from it.

ERIC STROEVE, Lahaina

SUPPORT THE SAVE HONOLUA COALITION

I believe that people should be aware of the facts involved with the sacred land of Honolua. Honolua is a great bay that must be preserved and kept clean. I worry about corporations or private companies having sole ownership of any sacred land, because profit is what they have in mind. I believe that a group of people who malama the land should be the caretakers of the land.

I have lived on the West Side of Maui all of my life and have recently become involved with Save Honolua Coalition. I want to do my part to protect the beaches from further pollution of any kind. Now that there are port-a-potties near the bay, maybe they can be moved closer, so people are more likely to use them instead of the bushes. Every little bit counts. To take care of the people, we must first take care of the ‘aina. Please support Save Honolua Coalition’s cause.

MIKEY NGUYEN, Eighth-grader, Sacred Hearts School

GOVERNMENT CAN’T VIOLATE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Supporters of Obama’s so-called “contraceptive mandate” would like you to believe that it’s an issue of women’s reproductive rights. However, this is not an issue of ensuring women can access appropriate health care; this is an issue of our right to conscience. Women currently enjoy ready access to contraceptives without government mandating religious organizations also provide them to employees. Due to Title X and other government subsidies, there are over 4,500 family planning clinics and 8,000 community health center delivery sites nationwide, a majority of which provide contraceptives.

Seventy-five percent of all U.S. counties have at least one clinic that provides contraceptives.

What the government does NOT have the authority to mandate is that both men AND WOMEN abdicate their First Amendment rights; the government should enact no law restricting the free exercise of religion. Those opposed to the “contraceptive mandate” are not trying to shove their own viewpoints down anyone else’s throats. THEY ARE NOT SAYING that contraceptives should never be used. They are simply trying to protect their right to exercise what they believe – to have the CHOICE as to whether or not they finance something to which they have religious and/or moral objections

BARBARA J FERRARO, Hawaii State Director, Concerned Women for America, Hilo

ARE ROOSTERS A NOISE PROBLEM?

I would like to request help from the community on this everlasting issue, and some response to see if you feel the same way as many of us do.

I am doing a research paper on crowing roosters for my college class on “Taking a Stand on a Local Issue.” So far, I have found a lot of information but still need your help and response as a community on this. Does anyone know where we stand on this? Why are there still crowing roosters in our residential neighborhoods?

Do we not have rights to our peace and quiet enjoyment in our own homes? Where is that noise ordinance that was proposed in a bill by the County Council in 2003 to stop having roosters in residential areas? Does anyone even know about this proposed bill presented by the committee NINE YEARS AGO? Does anyone feel this is a problem, or do we just again ignore it for another nine years?? I can’t even talk on my phone in my home without the other party asking if I have a rooster in my house.

If you would like a say in this, please voice your opinion. Let us finally take a stand on this issue. Let this rooster noise finally come to a STOP! For the owners of these roosters, please have some consideration for others and move them to a secluded area where the crowing would not disturb anyone’s sleep. We are not trying to change your lifestyle – just the location of how you do it!

During the day as well, did you know that the roosters are also a major disturbance for students trying to concentrate and study in a classroom nearby? They cannot even hear their teacher speak over the crowing and screaming of these roosters.

For whatever reasons you, as a rooster owner, may have, the community needs your support to make this place that we live in truly the beautiful paradise called Hawaii, and not the country lifestyle of the Philippines with screaming roosters all day long! Let us finally take a stand and make a change to make this the paradise we live in!

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST