Saturday, May 17, WCC will bid farewell to at least 45 of its students at the commencement ceremony at 1 p.m. in Palikū Theatre.  


The ceremony will open with a musical prelude by Pila Nahenahe and a welcome by Chancellor Angela Meixell and ASUH-WCC President Alicia Kalahiki.


If there are three words to describe WCC student commencement speaker Tasia Tanginoa, it would be “outspoken, passionate and clumsy,” she says, laughing. 


“Getting through college can be a struggle and it takes commitment,” she maintains.  “I can’t remember how many times my friends wanted to go out and party in their new, expensive outfits while I pulled a double shift at work, then came home, not to rest, but to write a paper or cram for a test.”


For Budde Cabael, the road to a college degree has been anything but easy. 


Over the past few years, he’s worked full-time as a youth counselor at the Bobby Benson drug treatment center and has been a full-time WCC student. 


“I’d go to class during the day, then work an 8- to 12-hour shift and do a whole week of homework on the weekend,” he explained.


Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer may have Thelma and Louise, but Windward Community College has Alice and Hazel. 


This May, Alice Shimabukuro and Hazel Zablan’s journey toward a college degree will reach a milestone when they graduate from WCC with their Associate in Arts degree.


Safety on college campuses has become a vital issue across the nation, and Windward Community College is no exception.


The mission of WCC is to pursue knowledge through teaching and learning in an atmosphere of physical and intellectual freedom. 


Every semester several hundred students enroll at WCC with the dream of a college degree or at least a start on some classes.


But for some that dream may not happen. Work, family or personal issues may get in the way.


Are you a poet and you didn’t know it? Neither did many of the people who turned in their “Wild” themed writing and artwork into the Rain Bird for this year’s annual literary magazine. The 2008 issue is being celebrated by a launch party in Hale Alaka’i Room 102, on May 16 at 6:30 p.m. 


Everyone is welcome to attend as long as you RSVP by Monday, May 12. The theme this year is focused on all things wild, and there will be awards given for those whose work represented the theme best.