Kauai fourth-graders win respect-themed essay and artwork contest honors

Six Kauaʻi fourth-graders were honored for essays and artwork centered on respect, a contest that drew just 16 entries from two schools and three teachers and turned the county recognition into a tightly focused celebration of student work.

The awards were presented at a luncheon at the Līhuʻe Neighborhood Center, where Laurie Ho of the Kauaʻi Association for Family and Community Education helped recognize the winners alongside teachers Milgros Sagucio, Karen Heresa and Jessica Muraoka. The contest theme this year was Respect, one of the Six Pillars of Character used by the National Association for Family and Community Education.

Mabel Ellis-Elgart of Kapaʻa Elementary School took first place locally and also finished second at the state level, giving Kauaʻi a result that reached beyond the island. Isabella Hudson of Kapaʻa Elementary placed second, and Rory Ford of Elsie Wilcox Elementary School finished third. Honorable mentions went to Matarangi Kitashima and Breeana Gonsalves of Kapaʻa Elementary and Marina Burns of Elsie Wilcox Elementary.

The small number of entries made the competition feel especially local. Kapaʻa Elementary accounted for most of the submissions through Sagucio’s classroom, while Elsie Wilcox entries came from Heresa and Muraoka, underscoring how much the contest depended on a handful of teachers willing to build character education into fourth-grade work.

The National FCE contest is designed to promote ethics through the Six Pillars of Character, which also include trustworthiness, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Only current fourth-graders are eligible, and local entries are due by April 15 during a contest cycle that runs from September 1 through March 31.

For Kauaʻi, the annual recognition has become a recurring marker of student achievement. Kaira Terui of Elsie Wilcox won locally and at the state level in 2024, and Kawehimakanoe Mardonada of Kapaʻa Elementary repeated that local-and-state sweep in 2025. Hawaii Family and Community Education says it operates on Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Maui and Hawaiʻi Island, and its CHARACTER COUNTS materials archive shows the program has continued across multiple years, making this year’s respect-themed honors part of a longer island tradition rather than a one-time classroom exercise.