Rotary Club of Hanalei awards $5,000 scholarship to Piko Vaughn

The Rotary Club of Hanalei gave its top scholarship this year to Island School graduate Piko Vaughn, awarding him $5,000 through the Hawaii Rotary Youth Foundation. Three other students, Lily Glick, Lilihia Ventura and Lea Meyers, each received $1,000 scholarships.

Vaughn accepted the scholarship on Thursday, June 18, as the club recognized four students in all, including two from Island School. Ron Margolis, the club president, pointed to Vaughn's academic record and the way he carried himself as a student leader.

Vaughn finished Island School with a near-4.0 grade-point average and served as captain of both the basketball and volleyball teams. Margolis called Vaughn’s full Hawaiian name especially long and meaningful, but friends and classmates know him simply as Piko. Piko means the center or a point of connection, and Margolis pointed to that sense of connection in Vaughn’s achievements and character. The club also tied Vaughn to kuleana, mālama and lōkahi, values that reflect responsibility, care and harmony.

Each Rotary club on Kaua‘i selects one Hawaii Rotary Youth Foundation recipient, and the five Kaua‘i clubs each named a $5,000 scholarship recipient in 2020 as part of more than $270,000 awarded statewide that year. Rotary District 5000 has 52 Rotary clubs across Hawai‘i in the scholarship program.

The Hawaii Rotary Youth Foundation scholarships are for Hawai‘i high school students attending four-year colleges or universities in Hawai‘i or on the U.S. mainland. Selection is based on scholastic and academic achievement, campus and community involvement and a personal essay. The foundation, created in 1976 by Maurice J. “Sully” Sullivan, the founder of Foodland Supermarkets and then Rotary district governor in Hawai‘i, has granted nearly $7 million in scholarships since it began.