"When the Canoe Glides Smoothly, It Is As Though Everyone Is Moving and Breathing Together" — A Puna Paddler and Filmmaker Is Headed to Jeju
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Bodhi Parker
Preferred Name: Bodhi
School: Keaʻau High School
Grade: 10th
Home Community: Puna, Hawaiʻi Island (Big Island)
Delegation: Jeju Island
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: Puna Canoe Club — year-round paddler, stroker (Seat 1) for 6-man crew; OC1 individual outrigger competitor; surfing; fishing; school māla (organic garden) work since 2024; volunteered at Lahaina fire donation sorting; National History Day — won 1st place Junior Documentary at Hawaiʻi State level (2024) for documentary on the Tuskegee Airmen, advanced to nationals; videography and illustration; 3D printing (sold prints through Waiākea NexTech); 10-day Nalukai entrepreneurship program on Oʻahu; designed a cardboard biodegradable seed tray concept for microgreens; ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi coursework (Hawaiian 1 & 2, Hawaiian Culture elective)
Career Aspirations: Entrepreneurship focused on food security, sustainability, and waste reduction — his biodegradable seed tray concept is a named, specific project he has already begun developing; he connects this directly to the trip
Cultural Background: White/Caucasian; born and raised in Puna; deep connection to Hawaiian land and ocean through canoe paddling, māla work, and ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi study; his essay reflects genuine kuleana to the land that is rooted in practice, not just sentiment
Why They Were Selected
Bodhi is a tenth grader from Puna who already knows how to make a documentary, grow food, design a product, paddle a solo canoe through exhaustion without capsizing, and sort donations after a disaster. He has a specific invention idea. He has won a national competition. He has been to New Zealand and a named connection to a PAAC alumni brought him here. His essay is the most entrepreneurially specific in this cohort — he isn't going to Jeju to see the world, he's going to bring back strategies he can apply to a problem he has already named.
What They're Excited About
Time stopping when he found out; the surreal wave of accomplishment; his imagination racing through what the trip would be like; the foods, sights, and sounds of Jeju; meeting his travel companions; the transformative potential — not just for himself but for his family and community
When He Found Out He Was Accepted, Time Stopped. Then His Heart Dropped. He Was Going to Jeju — and That Meant Leaving Puna.
The moment Bodhi Parker found out he'd been accepted, he says time stopped. Then SO many thoughts and feelings rushed through him at once — the excitement, the accomplishment, and then something else: his heart dropped at the thought of traveling so far from the familiarity of his island home. Joy and homesickness arrived at exactly the same instant. That's a Puna kid — someone whose roots run deep enough that leaving is complicated, even when you're thrilled to go. This March, the Keaʻau High sophomore is headed to Jeju Island as a PAAC Sister-State Student Ambassador.
Bodhi was born and raised in Puna, surrounded by rain, lava fields, and the ocean. He paddles year-round with the Puna Canoe Club as the stroker — the one who sets the pace for the entire crew — and competes solo in OC1. He works in his school's organic māla garden. He won first place at the Hawaiʻi State History Day competition for a documentary on the Tuskegee Airmen and advanced to nationals. He's taken ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi through high school, sold 3D-printed designs, attended the Nalukai entrepreneurship program on Oʻahu, and sorted donations after the Lahaina fire. He also has a specific invention: a biodegradable cardboard seed tray for growing microgreens at home — designed to turn Hawaiʻi's biggest waste stream into a tool for food sovereignty.
Bodhi was selected because his curiosity is applied, not abstract. He doesn't just think about food security — he designed a solution. He doesn't just talk about leadership — he's the one in Seat 1, setting the rhythm for five other paddlers, responsible for whether the whole crew stays in time. His essay describes the feeling of a canoe gliding when the crew is fully synchronized: "It is as though everyone is moving and breathing together." That understanding of collective effort, learned on the water in Puna, is exactly what he'll bring to Jeju.
"When the canoe glides smoothly, it is as though everyone is moving and breathing together." — Bodhi Parker, Keaʻau High School, Class of 2028
When Bodhi comes home to Puna from Jeju, he'll arrive with strategies for a problem he's been thinking about since before he applied. For a Big Island community that knows what it means to rebuild — and what it means to grow food from volcanic ground — that kind of applied curiosity matters.
