This is the third of four specials in which outstanding HIKI NŌ graduates from the Class of 2020 gather together to discuss their HIKI NŌ experiences and how they feel the skills they learned from HIKI NŌ will help them in college, the workplace and life. They also discuss their disrupted senior year of high school and thoughts on the future as they transition into adulthood during a worldwide pandemic.

This episode features Naomi Toki, who graduated from Waimea High School on Kauaʻi and is now majoring in business and entrepreneurship at McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois; Amee Neves, who graduated from Waiʻanae High School on Oʻahu and is now an English major at the University of Washington in Seattle; and Kaycee Nakashima, who graduated from Hawaiʻi Baptist Academy on Oʻahu and has deferred her admission to Biola University in La Mirada, California, to attend the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Due to travel restrictions and social distancing guidelines, their conversation took place via Zoom, with HIKI NŌ Class of 2018 graduate Marlena Lang (now a journalism major at Biola University) serving as interviewer.

In the show, Naomi discusses her experience creating a Student Reflection about life during the Spring 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Amee reflects on her experience co-creating a story about a classmate whose uncle’s death led to forming a closer bond with his father. Kaycee talks about the skills she learned while producing a story on a Taiko drumming class for the deaf.

—–

KAYCEE NAKASHIMA (HIKI NŌ graduate from Hawaiʻi Baptist Academy on Oʻahu): “More than anything, the pandemic has given us a lot of time to reinvent ourselves. I’ve noticed a lot of people are becoming more innovative and creative and are just expanding and honing the skills that they already have. That time that allowed us to do that has helped us grow into even better people.”