From Lāʻie to El Salvador to Fiji — and Now Okinawa: Kahuku's Toa Aupiu Has Always Known How to Show Up for His Community
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Tanugatoa Aupiu
Preferred Name: Toa
School: Kahuku High and Intermediate School
Grade: 10th
Home Community: Lāʻie, North Shore, Oʻahu
Delegation: Okinawa
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: American Samoan Surf Team member — represented team at surf camp in Fiji and international competition in El Salvador (2025); former keiki performer at Polynesian Cultural Center night show (ages 12–15, retired when he grew too tall); President of Teachers Quorum at church (plans youth activities, teaches lessons, serves as chorister); Kahuku varsity soccer; golf; photography (owns a Canon); has traveled to Japan (multiple times), England, France, Fiji, and El Salvador
Career Aspirations: Entrepreneurship — he wants to start his own business, stay in Hawaiʻi, and eventually become a decision-maker; he explicitly frames this trip as business networking and perspective-building
Why They Were Selected
Toa has been representing Hawaiʻi his whole life — on stage at the Polynesian Cultural Center in front of international audiences, in the ocean representing the American Samoan Surf Team in Fiji and El Salvador, and in his church community as a youth leader. He moves through the world with the ease of someone who has always been a bridge between cultures. What makes him stand out isn't just the résumé — it's the specificity of his vision: he wants to come back to Lāʻie, start a business, raise a family, and never leave. That kind of rootedness gives his international experiences genuine purpose.
What They're Excited About
Meeting new people; seeing a part of the world he's never seen; experiencing Okinawan culture; surprised and genuinely excited at being selected
He Danced at the Polynesian Cultural Center for Three Years. He Had to Retire Because He Grew Too Tall. Now He's Headed to Okinawa.
Tanugatoa Aupiu — Toa to everyone who knows him — performed in the Polynesian Cultural Center's night show from age twelve to fifteen, dancing in front of thousands of international visitors and meeting people from all over the world. Then he had to step down from the role. Not because he wanted to. Because he'd grown too tall for it. That detail says something about Toa: even the things he outgrows, he outgrows by becoming more. This March, the Kahuku High sophomore is headed to Okinawa as a PAAC Sister-State Student Ambassador.
Toa is from Lāʻie — the tightly-knit North Shore community he plans to never leave — and he carries it with him everywhere he goes. He's the President of his church's Teachers Quorum, a member of the American Samoan Surf Team who competed internationally in El Salvador and trained in Fiji this year, a varsity soccer player, a golfer, and a photographer with his own Canon who sees the world, as he puts it, through a different lens. He wants to start a business, stay in Hawaiʻi, and one day raise his family right where he grew up.
Toa was selected because he already knows how to be in a room with people who are nothing like him — and make them feel welcomed anyway. He learned it dancing for international audiences at the PCC. He learned it competing for the American Samoan Surf Team in countries he'd never been to. He learned it in Lāʻie, where saying hi to people you pass and opening doors for elders isn't just manners — it's how the community holds itself together. That instinct travels well.
"I want to live here forever... My vision is Hawaiʻi will be a place that I can one day raise my family." — Tanugatoa Aupiu, Kahuku High and Intermediate School, Class of 2028
When Toa comes home to Lāʻie from Okinawa, he'll bring back something that connects directly to what he wants to build — a broader perspective on how communities preserve culture while building sustainable local economies. For a North Shore kid who has already seen more of the world than most adults, that's not an abstract idea. It's a plan.
