KAILUA-KONA — This story was written to prove to intermediate school students that newspapers exist.
The above sentence is a catchy lede, which is the introduction to a story newspapers use to capture their readers’ interest.
Both ledes and newspapers were learning material for Kealakehe Intermediate School students Monday during their College and Career Fair in Kailua-Kona, an event hosted by teacher Zohreh Furtado, whose AVID class organized the event as a way to get young minds interested in thinking about life after high school graduation.
“It’s really helped a lot on thinking about what I could do with my future,” said eighth-grader Emma Carrier, a AVID student, who would be the first in her family to go to college should she choose to.
The course has taught her the value of organizing and taking good notes as a way to better learn material in school.
Classmate Mikaela Irons agreed. She liked the organizational skills she’s learned through the class and that planning the career day taught her the ins-and-outs of real life scheduling. She reached out to businesses to take part, some of whom never called back. But so it goes in real life.
“They said they’d call back but didn’t,” she said. “It was like we were joking around.”
Among the roughly dozen colleges and careers represented included Hawaii Community College – Palamanui, Darl Gleed, attorney at law, and the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources out of Hilo, which brought a 26-year-old horse named Pogo who recently lost one eye due to infection. And West Hawaii Today, which was told by students they usually read what they access on their cellphones via Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat.
Furtado said the event is important in that it helps encourage students to pursue higher education, especially students who would be first-generation college students in their families. But more than that, it’s a daylong event that encourages them to become rooted in their community, no matter which path they select.
“It’s all about building those relationships,” she said. “That’s so important.”
The businesses, too, said they enjoyed reaching out to the students. Kids huddled by the dozens around the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources’ booth all day.
“Pogo stole the show,” Britton Cole, farm manager, said.