KHS announces Sarah Rosenberg scholarship winners
The Kealakehe High School Community Council recently awarded four scholarships to graduating Waveriders in honor of the late Sarah Rosenberg.
The council established in 2000-01 for the school’s first graduating class four scholarships to honor Waverider graduates who represent the values of KHS. These young adults are named the Most Outstanding and Most Charitable students in their class. Since the first KHS graduation in 2001, there have been 100 awardees who have earned a total of $189,500 to support their post-secondary educational plans.
In 2005, the scholarships were renamed to honor Rosenberg, a talented, driven and compassionate student-athlete who attended Kealakehe High from August 2001 until her death in December 2004. During Christmas break of 2004, Rosenberg was killed in a tragic car accident. Over the course of her high school career, Rosenberg came to embody the highest qualities of a Kealakehe Waverider. These scholarships bear her name as a means of capturing her spirit and to serve as an inspiration for future Waveriders. After Rosenberg’s death, a fund was established through the Hawaii Community Foundation to ensure the scholarships would be perpetual.
The 2021-22 awardees for “Most Outstanding Waverider” were Connor Aparicio-Bill ($3,000) and runner-up Kea Clebsch ($2,500). The “Most Charitable Waverider” awardees were Claire Texeira ($3,000) and runner-up Diana Garcia ($2,500).
Each of the winners plans to attend a four-year university in the fall.
Aparicio-Bill, who was the treasurer for the student body government and co-captain of the 2022 BIIF champion boy’s swim team, plans to study mechanical engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Clebsch is a Native Hawaiian artist who is dedicated to work centered on culture, educational reform and indigenous rights. At school, she was active in the Kealakehe STEM academy, the science fair and Model United Nations. She plans to study comparative race and ethnic studies with a minor in fine arts at Stanford University.
Texeira was a member of the National Honor Society and was on the KHS water polo team and 2022 BIIF winning girl’s swim team. She is attending California State University-East Bay and plans to study 3D Art and Graphic Design.
Garcia was the co-captain of the KHS girl’s swim team that won BIIF’s this year, a member of the National Honor Society and also won awards at the local Young at Art competition. She will follow a pre-medicine course of study while attending the University of California-Irvine.
