Hawaiian Mission Academy

History

The educational work of the Seventh-day Adventists in the Hawaiian Islands started in 1895 with a boarding school for boys, under the leadership of H. H. Brand. This school was named the Anglo- Chinese Academy in 1897 when Professor and Mrs. W. E. Howell came to Honolulu to head the institution. The school grew rapidly and prominent merchants and citizens enrolled their sons. To accommodate the expanding enrollment, several changes in location were made until Bethel Grammar, as it was known then, located on Keeaumoku Street, added secondary grades. Again, increased enrollment called for more adequate quarters. In 1920 several properties on Makiki Street were secured and a combined elementary and secondary school designed to accommodate the entire constituency of the Hawaiian Missions of Seventh-day Adventists was built. Thus the name, Hawaiian Mission Academy. Steady growth in enrollment reached a climax during World War II. In 1946, the estate of former Princess Abigal Kawananakoa Campbell property on Pensacola Street, Royal Hawaiian land, became available as a site for a new secondary school. Construction was begun in the summer of 1949, and the secondary school and its administrative offices were moved to the campus in December, 1949. At the same time, the elementary school remained at the Makiki Street campus. Many of Hawaiian Mission Academy’s alumni have been and continue to be active members of the Hawaiian community. Among them are Mary Kawena Pukui`I, David Pendleton, Labor Relations Board Judge in Honolulu, John Waihe’e, III, former Governor of the state of Hawaii, and the former First Lady of Hawaii, Lynne Waihe’e, who serves as Chair of the Hawaiian Mission Academy Board of Trustees.