"For All You Know That Could Be Their Worst Day of Their Life" — Hunter Lee of Pāhoa Is Taking His Kuleana to Ilocos Norte
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Hunter Lee
Preferred Name: Hunter
School: Pāhoa High and Intermediate School
Grade: 12th (Senior)
Home Community: Pāhoa, Puna, Hawaiʻi Island (Big Island)
Delegation: Ilocos Norte/Ilocos Sur
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: Taco Bell food service worker (~30 hours/week); Student Government Association Executive Vice President; Hawaiʻi State Student Council Representative (since sophomore year); Co-Lead of PHIS Event Staff (student safety and traffic coordination at school events); regular community volunteer; swimming at the beach
Career Aspirations: Not explicitly named — but his kuleana statement ("to show kindness and compassion to everyone I meet") and his HSSC and SGA leadership suggest a path toward public service or community leadership
Why They Were Selected
Hunter was left on the doorstep of a Vietnamese orphanage as a newborn. Two months later he was adopted and brought to Hawaiʻi. He grew up not knowing Pidgin, not knowing ʻohana as a concept that could include him, working to figure out where he belonged. Then in eighth grade he made a best friend. In ninth grade he lost his father to leukemia — in PE class, crying in front of his peers, and discovering that they didn't judge him. They held him. His essay is the single most emotionally honest piece of writing in this cohort. He is a senior who works 30 hours a week, leads student government, and has distilled everything he's been through into one sentence he lives by.
What They're Excited About
The nervous hesitation before opening the email; the excitement after; meeting new people and building lasting friendships; the idea that this trip is proof that if you try, something real can happen; wanting to encourage others to travel by telling his own story
Seventeen Years Ago, a Faint Knock on a Door in Vietnam Changed Everything. Now He's a Senior at Pāhoa High, and He's Going to the Philippines.
Seventeen years ago, caretakers at a small orphanage in Vietnam heard a faint knock late at night. When they opened the door, there was no one there — just a small noise at their feet. A newborn, in a bundle no bigger than a shoebox. It was Hunter Lee. Two months later, he was adopted and brought across the ocean to Hawaiʻi. He grew up in Pāhoa, in Puna, on the Big Island — figuring out ʻohana from the outside, working to belong, and eventually discovering that Hawaiʻi's people would hold him in ways he never expected.
Hunter is a senior who packs more into a week than most adults. He works nearly 30 hours at Taco Bell after school, serves as Executive Vice President of the Student Government Association, represents his school on the Hawaiʻi State Student Council, and co-leads PHIS Event Staff — the student crew that keeps families safe at graduations and community events. He swims at the beach when he needs to breathe. He has been building toward something his whole life, even when he didn't know what it was.
Hunter was selected because his essay contains what may be the most hard-earned sentence in this entire cohort: "From that day on, my kuleana is to show kindness and compassion to everyone I meet because for all you know that could be their worst day of their life." That sentence came out of losing his father to leukemia in ninth grade — in PE class, crying in front of his peers, and discovering that they surrounded him instead of judging him. He didn't write about resilience. He wrote about what it felt like to be held, after a lifetime of learning what ʻohana means.
"From that day on, my kuleana is to show kindness and compassion to everyone I meet because for all you know that could be their worst day of their life." — Hunter Lee, Pāhoa High and Intermediate School, Class of 2026
When Hunter returns to Pāhoa from Ilocos Norte, he'll do what he's always done — tell the story to whoever needs to hear it. He said it himself: this trip is proof that if you try, something real can happen. For a senior from Puna who has been proving that his entire life, that message will travel far.
