"I'M GOING TO OKINAWA!" — A Upcountry Maui Poet, Filmmaker, and Jujitsu Coach Is Turning 16 in Japan This March
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Maxwell Loubser
Preferred Name: Max
School: King Kekaulike High School
Grade: 10th
Home Community: Pukalani/Upcountry Maui
Delegation: Okinawa
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: PAAC Book Club President; Debate Club Officer; Mock Trial Team; Chess Club Vice President; highest-ranking student and former coach at local Jujitsu school; film editor (paid position); Writer/Director/Producer with Hisako Film Lab and Maui Huliau Foundation; Toronto Film School alumnus; mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, photography, videography; Top Ten finisher in Hawaiʻi Youth Poet Laureate program; avid reader
Career Aspirations: Writing and film — he has already secured paid work as a film editor and placed in the top ten for Hawaiʻi Youth Poet Laureate; both paths are active, not aspirational
Why They Were Selected
Max arrived in Hawaiʻi at twelve from Canada and fell in love with it on purpose. His essay reads like someone who has been paying close attention to beauty — the sunsets, the mountains, the neighbors — and translating it into language since he got here. He's a poet, a filmmaker, a jujitsu coach, and a debate officer who has already placed nationally in a youth writing competition. He brings to this trip the eye of an artist and the discipline of someone who has been training, in multiple senses, for a long time.
What They're Excited About
The Japanese language and values, which he says he is "already in love with"; meeting his future travel companions; experiencing Okinawan culture; notably — his birthday falls on March 21, which he will spend in Okinawa
He Was Smiling Internally for Hours. When He Finally Called Back, He Couldn't Stop Laughing.
Max Loubser saw the missed call from Carol and started speculating. Maybe — in a whim of wishful thinking, as he put it — he'd gotten in after all. He couldn't focus on his work. He smiled internally for hours until he could finally return the call. And then he couldn't stop laughing and jumping about. "Safe to say," he wrote, "that this Terrifical feeling has never left." The King Kekaulike High School sophomore from Upcountry Maui is going to Okinawa — and he has been thinking about it approximately every other instant since.
Max is one of the most creatively accomplished students in this cohort. He's the President of Kekaulike's PAAC Book Club, an Officer of the Debate Club, Vice President of Chess, the highest-ranking student at his local Jujitsu school, and a paid film editor for a professional photo/video journalist. He's a Writer, Director, and Producer who has worked with the Hisako Film Lab and Maui Huliau Foundation and studied at the Toronto Film School. He also placed in the Top Ten for the Hawaiʻi Youth Poet Laureate program — a competition that draws students from across the state. He writes like it, too.
Max was selected because his curiosity about the world isn't passive — it's trained. He moved to Maui from Canada at twelve and chose to love it, deliberately and specifically: the sunsets, the mountains, the neighbors who carried him through what he calls "the abundance of treacherous obstacles which life has constructed in my way." He arrived here as an outsider and built himself into someone who now leads clubs, coaches students, and makes films about the place he calls home. That kind of intentional belonging makes a remarkable ambassador.
"Whenever I think about it, which is about every other instant, I find a skip in my step and a twinkle in my eye — I'M GOING TO OKINAWA!" — Maxwell Loubser, King Kekaulike High School, Class of 2028
Max turns sixteen in Okinawa — his birthday falls on March 21, right in the middle of the trip. Whatever he brings home to Upcountry Maui, it will arrive with the full weight of someone who chose Hawaiʻi, chose to stay, and is now choosing to go out into the world and come back better. For a student already building a career in writing and film, that story is only beginning.
