Waimea High seniors earn scholarships for agriculture projects, shade house rebuild

A rebuilt shade house and two senior agriculture projects turned a scholarship ceremony in Puhi into a practical test of Kauai’s farm workforce pipeline. More than 150 people filled the Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center on Thursday, May 28, 2026, as Waimea High School seniors Ikaika Miyashiro and Ashtin Kinimaka-Aranio were recognized for work that left the school with a more functional growing space and students with scholarship support.

The Friends of Kekaha Agriculture coordinated the scholarships, with support from Corteva Agriscience and guidance from then-Waimea High teacher Ryan Kakuda. Rep. Dee Morikawa and Senate President Ron Kouchi were among the officials congratulating the graduates, alongside Council Chair Mel Rapozo, parents and other supporters. The setting gave the evening a civic tone, but the underlying question was straightforward: whether school agriculture programs can produce skills, facilities and students ready to stay in island agriculture.

Kinimaka-Aranio’s project centered on rebuilding Waimea High’s shade house, work Kakuda described in detail as removing old sidewalk sections, leveling the ground, laying weed tarp, installing a 16-nozzle irrigation system and adding tracking for a new shade cloth system. The upgrades were designed to better hold up against the windy down-slope conditions coming off Kokee and to make the structure more durable for future agricultural classes. For a school program, that meant a better place to grow crops and a more usable training site for the next group of students.

Miyashiro’s senior project also contributed to the school’s agriculture work, part of a pattern that has made Waimea High’s farm program visible beyond campus. In July 2025, students there distributed more than 600 grape tomato seedlings during the Koloa Plantation Days parade, plants grown as a senior project under Kakuda’s direction. In March 2022, Waimea students in Early College agriculture were sent to the Pau Hana Market in Līhue for a hands-on lesson tied to National Ag Week, another sign that the program has been built around real-world food production, not classroom theory alone.

That approach fits broader county and college efforts to rebuild agricultural pathways. Kauai County’s Office of Economic Development says its agriculture mission is to increase agricultural income and opportunities on Kauai and supports high school agriculture internship programs. County officials said in 2017 that the internship program had grown from two Kauai High School students to 37 students from Kapaa, Kauai and Waimea high schools. Kauai Community College’s Kūkulu Ae program also supports an Early College Program at Waimea High in the Natural Resource Pathway and continues to offer botany courses there so students can earn a Hawaiian Botany Certificate of Competence by graduation.

The island’s agricultural infrastructure adds weight to that pipeline. The University of Hawaii’s Lālāmilo Research Station in Waimea includes greenhouse facilities and agricultural research activity, underscoring how West Kauai remains tied to growing, testing and teaching the next generation of farmers and land stewards.