"If My Place Contains Jaw-Droppingly Beautiful Nature, What Would the Rest of the World Look Like?" — A Maui High Junior Finds Out This March
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Ian Payba
Preferred Name: Ian
School: Maui High School
Grade: 11th
Home Community: Kahului/Central Maui
Delegation: Jeju Island
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: STEMsters Club Founder (teaches elementary students STEM through hands-on projects); Maui High PAAC Club Co-Treasurer; Robotics (joined blind, learned quickly); Cyber Patriots/Cisco networking; Key Club volunteer; school Programming Pathway Ambassador; tennis team; pickleball and badminton club; Academic WorldQuest competitor; Global Vision Summit attendee; met Senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and Representative Jill Tokuda in Washington D.C. through Close Up program (Spring 2025); astronomy enthusiast; video games; skied Whistler Blackcomb as a kid
Career Aspirations: Not explicitly named, but he mentions working hard to afford travel and become his best self; considering astronomy as a minor; his essay frames civic advocacy around housing affordability and environmental quality as genuine concerns — suggests a direction in policy, technology, or public service
Why They Were Selected
Ian has been practicing the thing this trip requires since his freshman year — stepping into uncomfortable rooms and staying. He joined clubs he never imagined joining. He founded a club so elementary kids on Maui could have what he didn't. He went to Washington D.C. and met his senators. He watches the stars at night and wonders how big the universe is. His essay opens with something most students would never put in an application — the words that followed him his whole life — and then explains exactly why they didn't stop him. That is a student ready to represent Maui.
What They're Excited About
Watching his friends get emails while not knowing his own result — then the surprise and happiness when his came; the prospect of studying abroad; cultural learning and language acquisition; the opportunity to gather ideas for Hawaiʻi's environmental and housing challenges
He Spent Years Hearing "Why Can't You Be More Like Your Brother?" He Founded a STEM Club, Met His Senators, and Got Into PAAC. Now He's Going to Jeju.
Someone has been asking Ian Payba why he couldn't be more like his brother for most of his life. He said it in the first line of his application essay — and then explained why it never stopped him. Those words, he wrote, only motivate him to do better and exceed expectations. That instinct — to take the thing that should discourage you and use it as fuel instead — is the same one that made him found a club to teach elementary kids on Maui about STEM, join Robotics with zero experience, travel to Washington D.C. to meet his senators, and apply to go to Jeju Island. The Maui High junior is going to Korea.
Ian is one of the most multiply-engaged students in this cohort. He's the founder of STEMsters, which pairs Maui High students with elementary schoolers for hands-on science and technology projects. He's co-treasurer of the PAAC club, a Robotics and Cyber Patriots participant, a Key Club volunteer, a tennis player, an Academic WorldQuest competitor, and a Global Vision Summit attendee. He stares at the stars at night and wonders how big the universe really is. He's been watching the sunrise from Haleakalā and standing in the cold of Iao Valley his whole life — and asking himself, if this place is this beautiful, what does the rest of the world look like?
Ian was selected because that question has been driving him since he was a kid, and he's been doing the work to answer it ever since. He didn't just think about stepping outside his comfort zone — he documented it, year by year, club by club, uncomfortable room by uncomfortable room, until discomfort became something he recognized and walked toward anyway. Going to Jeju is the next room.
"Embracing the coldness of Iao Valley or watching the sunrise above the clouds at Haleakalā has deepened my gratitude for nature and the beauty of it all. If my place contains jaw-droppingly beautiful nature, what would the rest of the world look like?" — Ian Payba, Maui High School, Class of 2027
When Ian comes home to Maui from Jeju, he'll bring back concrete observations about how other island communities manage the things Maui is struggling with — litter, water quality, cost of living — and a sharper sense of what Hawaiʻi could become. For a student who already teaches younger kids, advocates for change, and met his senators in D.C., that's not a small thing. That's the next step.
