Mid-Pacific Institute is a private, co-educational college preparatory school for grades preschool through twelve with an approximate enrollment of 1,538 students, the majority of whom are from

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

(although many also come from other states and other countries, such as Japan, South Korea, China, Canada, Australia,

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Inte ...

and countries in Europe and Africa). The school offers programs of study in the

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...

and the Mid-Pacific School of the Arts (MPSA). Mid-Pacific Institute is located on in

Manoa Mānoa (, ) is a valley and a residential neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii. The neighborhood is approximately three miles (5 km) east and inland from downtown Honolulu and less than a mile (1600 m) from Ala Moana and Waikiki at . Neighbo ...

, near the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, close to downtown

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the isla ...

History

The high school was established through the 1908 merger of Kawaiahao Seminary for Girls, founded in 1864, and Mills Institute for Boys, founded in 1892. Both schools were founded by missionaries, with the goal of teaching English to native Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese and other nationalities. It was established that the school must remain Christian so long as the original land was in use. However, students are allowed to practice any religion of their choice. Even members of the Hawaiian royal family attended the schools. By opening its doors to students with no prejudice over race and class status, Mid-Pacific was a part of a growing movement toward greater social acceptance that was rarely seen in the repressive

oligarchical Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...

control within the

Territory of Hawaii The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory ( Hawaiian: ''Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi'') was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 30, 1900, until August 21, 1959, when most of its territory, excluding ...

A merger of the two schools was suggested in 1905 and the Hawaiian Board of Foreign Missions purchased of land in

valley. A ceremony was held on May 31, 1906, for the new school campus, which officially opened in 1908. The two schools continued to operate independently while co-existing in the new campus until the coeducation plan went into effect in the fall of 1922 and by June 1923 Mid-Pacific Institute became the common shared name. The school added an elementary school when it merged with Epiphany School (which had been established as an elementary mission school by the Episcopal Church in 1937) in 2004. The school had an on-campus dormitory from 1908 until it was closed in November 2003 and replaced by the new elementary school. On February 23, 2012, Mid-Pacific announced it had ordered 1,500

iPads The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

for all students and faculty, making it one of the first schools in the nation to equip every student K-12 with an iPad.

Mid-Pacific School of the Arts (MPSA)

The Mid-Pacific School of the Arts offers a preprofessional certificate program in dance, instrumental music, drama, and fine arts. The MPSA is the only certified program of its kind in the state of Hawaii. Students who complete their studies often move on to professional conservatories and other schools of performing and fine arts. MPI is unique in requiring all of its students to take a number of arts electives. Students can take classes in

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

hula Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song ( mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visua ...

instrumental music An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instrum ...

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile art ...

, and

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

. The Mid-Pacific School of the Arts, which was formally established in 1991, is a member of the International Network of Performing and Visual Arts Schools and was among the first six schools in the nation to be recognized by the organization as a Network Star School. It also received the Arts Excellence Award from the Hawaii Alliance for Arts Education.

The International Baccalaureate

The

is a widely recognized and highly regarded two-year pre-university educational program that emphasizes rigorous, internationally based curriculum standards and promotes awareness and appreciation of global issues and perspectives. Students must take six subjects, and must also pass 3 extra requirements, for example, Theory of Knowledge (ToK), a 4000-word Extended Essay (EE), and a requirement of at least a total of 150 hours in CAS (Creativity, Action, Service). Mid-Pacific Institute was the first secondary school in the state of Hawaii to offer the

. The IB is administered by the

International Baccalaureate Organization The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...

, which was founded in the 1968 in

Geneva, Switzerland Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

Mid-Pacific Athletics

The school's athletic affiliation is with the

Interscholastic League of Honolulu The Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH) is an athletic activity league whose membership is primarily private secondary schools in Honolulu, Hawai'i. The ILH has 24 member schools with over 13,000 student athletes participating in 37 differe ...

. Mid-Pacific participates in intermediate,

junior varsity Junior varsity (often called "JV") players are the members of a team who are not the main players in a competition (such as any football, basketball, or baseball game), usually at the high school level–– and formerly at the collegiate level ...

and varsity level

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, cross country,

track & field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

canoe paddling A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the term ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

and

kayaking Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving over water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits faci ...

. Mid-Pacific Institute is one of nineteen smaller private schools that made up a larger unified team called Pac-5 Wolfpack, which allows the students to participate in certain high school athletic competition. Pac-Five began in 1973 to allow smaller institutions (of 1000 or fewer students per school) to form a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

team and compete at a varsity level with bigger schools. Now, Pac-5 competes in

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...

judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo") ...

and

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with th ...

. Mid-Pacific announced that they would be leaving its affiliation with Pac-5 in 2023. Mid-Pacific Institute has won state championships in baseball (1990-1992, 2002, 2013), Girls' Basketball (2017), Girls' Soccer (2011–2013), Boys' Soccer (2008, 2010, 2014, 2015), Boys' Sporter Air Riflery (2013, 2015, 2018), Girls' Sporter Air Riflery (2014, 2018), Girls' Swimming & Diving (2013, 2015), Boys' Canoe Paddling (2007), Boys' Golf (1985) and Softball (2011-2012). Through their affiliation with Pac-Five, they have also been part of state Football championships in 1982 and 1985.

Alma mater

Mid-Pacific's Alma mater was written by John L. Hopwood

Notable alumni and faculty

* Keiko Agena (1991), actor * Peter Apo (1957), musician *

Daniel Bess Daniel Luke Bess (born October 8, 1977) is an American television and film actor. Bess was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, and attended both high school and a school of the arts while living on the island. He later acted in New York th ...

(1995), actor * Les Ihara, Jr. (1969), member of the Hawaii Senate * Irene ʻĪʻī Brown Holloway, philanthropist * Katherine Kealoha, former Deputy Prosecutor with the City and County of Honolulu and a convicted felon *

Ayaka Kimura , born October 30, 1981 and known professionally as , is a Japanese actress and former singer. From 1998 to 2008, Nagate was part of Hello! Project as a member of the Japan-based girl group Coconuts Musume. History Nagate joined Hello! Proj ...

(2000), actor, former member of Coconuts Musume in

Hello! Project is a Japanese musical collective consisting of all female recording artists and groups under Up-Front Promotion, a subsidiary of Up-Front Group. The name was initially used as Michiyo Heike and Morning Musume's fan club name in 1999, but ha ...

* Maxine Hong Kingston, novelist, former faculty member * Isiah Kiner-Falefa (2013), professional baseball infielder for the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

Rob Letterman Robert Thomas Letterman (born October 31, 1970) is an American film director and screenwriter. Letterman made his directorial debut as co-director of the animated comedy film ''Shark Tale'' (2004), for which he received a nomination for the Annie ...

(1988), American film director, writer and voice actor * Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau (2002), actor * Lisa Matsumoto, author and playwright * Chuck Mau (1926), former Hawaii Democratic Party Chairman * Ronald Moon (1958), Chief Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court *

Scott Nishimoto Scott Y. Nishimoto is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Hawaii House of Representatives since January 2003 representing District 21. Education Nishimoto earned his Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Hawai� ...

(1992), member of the

Hawaii House of Representatives The Hawaii House of Representatives is the lower house of the Hawaii State Legislature. Pursuant to Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution of Hawaii, amended during the 1978 constitutional convention, the House of Representatives consists ...

Steere Noda Gikaku Steere Noda ( 1892 – March 29, 1986) was a Japanese American politician, lawyer, and baseball player in the State of Hawaii. Early life Noda was born in 1892 at the Ewa plantation to Esaki and Suma Noda, immigrants from Kumamoto, Japan. ...

(1911), former member of Hawaii Senate *

Mary Kawena Pukui Mary Abigail Kawenaulaokalaniahiiakaikapoliopele Naleilehuaapele Wiggin Pukui (20 April 1895 – 21 May 1986), known as Kawena, was a Hawaiian scholar, author, composer, hula expert, and educator. Life Pukui was born on April 20, 1895, in her ...

(1910), author, Hawaiian scholar, educator *

Peter Steigerwald Peter Steigerwald is an American comic book artist primarily known for his work as a colorist and his work at Aspen Comics. He has also worked in inking, writing, and graphic design. Career Steigerwald first worked with Top Cow Productions, colo ...

(1992), comic book artist for

Top Cow Top Cow Productions is an American comics publisher, an imprint of Image Comics founded by Marc Silvestri in 1992. History During the early years of Image Comics, which was founded in 1992, co-founder Marc Silvestri shared a studio with Jim ...

and later

Aspen Comics Aspen Comics (Aspen MLT Inc.) is a California entertainment company founded in 2003 by artist Michael Turner. It has locations in Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey. The company is best known for producing comic books and figurines. History The co ...

* Kelly Sueda (1991), painter, art collector * Floyd Takeuchi (1971), media executive, publisher *

Glenn Wakai Glenn S. Wakai (born May 14, 1967) is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Hawaii Senate since January 2011 representing District 15. Wakai consecutively served in the Hawaii State Legislature where he served from 2003 until 2 ...

, Hawai'i State Senator * Samuel Yamashita (1964), professor, author *

Kenichi Zenimura Kenichi Zenimura (January 25, 1900 – November 13, 1968) was a Japanese-American baseball player, manager, and promoter. He had a long career with semiprofessional Japanese-American baseball leagues in the western United States and Hawaii; these ...

(1918), baseball player and promoter

References

External links

Official WebsiteStudent Newspaper
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1908 Preparatory schools in Hawaii Private K-12 schools in Honolulu International Baccalaureate schools in Hawaii 1908 establishments in Hawaii