Kylea McMurray
Moapa Valley Progress
Submitted Mar. 26, 2008
Members of the Moapa Valley High School (MVHS) Jazz Band traveled to Hawaii last week for their annual trip. Each year the band travels for a week to play and experience a different place. This year the band was eagerly looking forward to visiting Hawaii.
The group had opportunities to visit a number of exciting places while on their trip. One of the first was Pearl Harbor Memorial. “Everyone was a little somber, but very respectful while we were at Pearl Harbor,” said band director Kim Delgadillo. “Everyone learned a lot about history, and a few of the students had an opportunity to meet some Pearl Harbor Survivors.”
“Pearl Harbor was pretty neat,” said Lyndsay Frehner. “There was so much history there, and we had the chance to learn things about what happened at Pearl Harbor that you never learn unless you go there.”
The band also had a chance to hike to the top of Diamond Head, a huge volcanic crater on the islands. The group had to hike up a steep cliff for about 1.5 miles, but most of them said that the view was worth the hike. “You could see most of the island, it was really a cool view,” said senior student Cody McCracken.
The band also saw most of the islands while on the Circle Island Tour. They had a chance to tour the Dole Pinapple farm, and a Macademia nut farm. “We got to see some of the most famous surf areas in the world, including the Pipeline while on the tour,” said Delgadillo. They stopped for a picnic lunch at a park on the north side of the island. Delgadillo said, “The ocean was on one side of us, and there was a beautiful mountain on the other side of us, it was great!”
One of the band’s favorite stops was the Polynesian Cultural Center.
“The Polynesian Cultural Center was very educational,” said Kim Delgadillo. “We learned about New Zealand, Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii, Marquez, and Fuji. We got to go to an official luau and we watched a fabulous show in the evening.”
“The cultural center was so fun,” said band member, Lyndsay Frehner. “They were having a canoe celebration, so they had canoes from a bunch of different islands and countries, and each canoe had people in different costumes, doing dances from their island. We also had a luau, where we ate a pig that had been roasted in a pit in the ground, it was good!”
Another of the band’s favorite experiences was a catamaran ride. A catamaran is a small boat used for tours of the ocean. “It was an awesome hour boat ride,” said Delgadillo. “We saw a whale spout and a sea turtle. The captain of our catamaran loved our students so much that he stopped the boat and let a few of them jump into the ocean for a little while.”
“The catamaran was really fun,” said Cody McCracken. “I was afraid it would be boring, but we got out there in the ocean, and some of the big waves started splashing up onto our boat, and it was a real adventure.”
The group also performed while in Hawaii. Their last performance was at the Ala Moana Mall. “We had a huge crowd at the mall, and everyone was really complimentary of our group,” said Delgadillo.
Overall, Delgadillo felt like the trip was a great success, thanks to the good behavior of her students. “On a couple of occasions other adults came to me and commented on how well behaved our group was. The students were very well behaved. It was a fabulous trip!”
