Helena High signs sister-school agreement with Japanese high school

Helena High School’s new sister-school agreement with Senshu University Tamana High School gives Helena students a formal link to a school in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, after years of building an online relationship across 5,700 miles and an ocean. The June 10 signing turned a pandemic-delayed idea into a concrete partnership, with Helena High already in early planning for a student visit to Japan next December.

Principal Brian Kessler and Senshu University Tamana High School principal Masataka Watanabe sealed the agreement at Helena High, where band students opened the ceremony with a traditional Japanese march. Watanabe also attended Helena High’s June 6 graduation ceremony, underscoring how quickly the relationship has moved from digital exchanges to face-to-face contact. The Japanese school said former principal Steve Thennis helped make the partnership possible from the beginning.

For students like Helena sophomore Rose Ellis, the value has started with personal connection. Ellis said writing to her pen pal has been her favorite part, describing the exchange as a reminder that students on both sides are still “just kids talking with other kids” despite major cultural differences. Senshu University Tamana High School said the relationship is meant to deepen educational, cultural and language exchange, not just produce a ceremonial signing.

The Helena school’s relationship with Kumamoto also sits inside a much older Montana-Japan connection. Montana and Kumamoto Prefecture established their sister-state relationship in 1982, a tie the state has said honors the work of Butte native and former U.S. senator and ambassador Mike Mansfield. The Montana Department of Commerce says the state opened a Japan Trade Office in Kumamoto City in 1990, and that office remains Montana’s current Japan Trade Office after the Tokyo office, opened in 1988, closed in 1993.

For Helena High, the pact gives a local school a direct role in that broader relationship. Senshu University Tamana High School said the schools first formed an online sister-school relationship in 2020, and a planned trip by Helena students and staff later that year was canceled because of the pandemic. Watanabe described the in-person signing as an important milestone after that disruption, and the schools now appear positioned to turn a long-distance friendship into a lasting academic and cultural pipeline for Helena students.