Waha Nui – 3/18/15
Teenager Aubrey McKenzie impressed pageant crowds Feb. 7 by signing to the Cinderella song, A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes. Judges named her Miss Hawaii Princess US 2015, a crowning moment for Aubrey, who is challenged with Down syndrome, autism and hearing impairment. Now 16, she’s a junior at Pearl City High School and Hawaii’s official ambassador to the National Down Syndrome Society, she got her start with the Mililani Miracles AYSO VIP Soccer team and has a collection of gold medals in track and field from Special Olympics. For the past 12 years, she’s been a headliner for the Lokahi Giving Program on the Ala Moana Center stage. Plus, she loves Zumba …
Wahiawa’s TaeShawna Hundley and Marquis Jackson (Leilehua 2014) have both graduated from Army basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C. … Mililani Middle School seventh-grade science teacher Michael Cahill is in Chicago this week (39 degrees F) as Hawaii’s official ambassador to the National Science Teachers Association conference, and she’s ready to absorb all she can from 400 exhibits and 1,200 presentations, workshops, field trips and socials …
Congratulations to music coordinator Kristi Lee Higuchi-Delos Santos and the voices from all seven Mililani Complex schools for their showing at the complex’s annual choral festival March 10 at the high school … Wahiawa native Donna Aukai has joined Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties as an independent real estate agent out of its Kapolei office. Wife, mother of three, grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of four, Donna also — surprise! — wrote a children’s book about her sons: The Adventures of Theodore and Winston …
Another gifted Central Oahu writer has left us. Memorial services are planned for May in Haleiwa (622-0857) for Audrey Sutherland, 94, who died of dementia complications Feb. 23. An active wife, mother, teacher and sea kayaker, Audrey published three books about her solo ocean adventures, and the last one, Paddling North, is still in print today & & & cchang@midweek.com
