Qualla: Lahainaluna High School

Lahainaluna High School: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 3.0. Twice a year, students at Lahainaluna High School shoulder 50-pound sacks of lime and hike to the 2,000-foot elevation mark on the mountain above Lahaina. There, they clear weeds, scrub rock, and lay a fresh coat of white on a 30-foot letter "L" that has overlooked the town since 1929. On a clear day, the freshly limed letter is visible from the island of Molokai, 26 miles across the channel. When they finish, they walk to the gravesite of David Malo, the school's most famous student, lay leis, chant, and pray. It is a ritual that connects a 21st-century public school to its origins as the first formal Western-style educational institution in all of Hawaii.

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Image: Brocken Inaglory | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lahainaluna High School: A Seminary in Thatched Huts

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 3.0. American missionary William Richards founded a mission station in Lahaina in 1823, and by 1831, the need for a more formal school had become clear. Lorrin Andrews was chosen as the first principal of a seminary for boys and young men, sited on the hillside above town at a place c...

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Image: Frank Schulenburg | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lahainaluna High School: The House of Printing

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nick Roux, updated by Peter Fitzgerald, Public domain. On the Lahainaluna campus sits Hale Pai -- the "house of printing" -- a small coral and timber building that, starting in 1834, housed Hawaii's first printing press. English and Hawaiian language Bibles, books, and newspapers rolled off that press, including the first newspaper p...

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Image: Nick Roux, updated by Peter Fitzgerald | Public domain

Lahainaluna High School: Boarding Life on the Hill

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sdkb, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lahainaluna remains one of the very few public boarding schools in the United States. Students from Maui's outer islands and remote communities live in two dormitories -- David Malo Dormitory for boys and Hoapili Dormitory for girls -- and work 18 hours per week in exchange for r...

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Image: Sdkb | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lahainaluna High School: Fire, Torches, and the Super Bowl

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit OpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY-SA 2.0. On graduation day, Lahainaluna alumni traditionally hike to the hillside "L" after dark and light torches along its outline, a constellation of fire that marks each class's passage from the school. The 2023 Maui wildfires brought a different kind of fire to Lahaina, destroying mu...

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Image: OpenStreetMap contributors | CC BY-SA 2.0