Maui’s Haleakala is among 16 national parks featured in a Forever stamps series to commemorate the U.S. National Park Service’s centennial.

The image of a rainbow at mountain’s summit at Haleakala National Park was taken by Kevin Ebi, a wildlife and nature photographer of Lynnwood, Wash. The commemorative National Park Service pane of stamps will be available nationwide June 2.

Ebi took the photo during his first trip to Haleakala to take sunrise photos in November 2008.

In a phone interview from Washington, he said when he arrived on the Valley Isle during the late afternoon, he drove to Haleakala to scan the area to determine the best spot to take sunrise photos the following morning. Met by hail and cloudy weather that afternoon, Ebi said he decided to hang out at the visitor center, where he saw a rainbow at one side of the crater. The angle was less than ideal, and Ebi continued to wait for over an hour and a half until the sun peeked through clouds and a rainbow formed over cinder cones.

“I only took one shot. The rainbow formed and it was gone,” he said.

Ebi later posted the photo to his website, livingwilderness.com.

The image caught the attention of the Postal Service, and he received a call last year from a representative who asked for permission to consider his Haleakala photo for the stamp series to commemorate the 100th anniversary.

Elated, Ebi recalled saying, “Oh yeah, of course!” It’s “incredibly surreal” for the photo to be selected as one of the 16 stamps, he added.

“My mom collected stamps, so I kind of grew up appreciating stamps, and for all my childhood, I spent a lot of time at national parks.”

“Given how many people take photos, even how many professional nature photographers there are, to be in such a small group to have one of my images for this is absolutely unbelievable,” said Ebi. “It’s a huge honor.”

A first-day-of-issue ceremony will take place at New York’s Javits Center at the world’s largest stamp show held once every 10 years. The U.S. Postal Service plans to hold an event to celebrate the Haleakala stamp, but details are pending on date and time, said Duke Gonzales, USPS spokesman in Hawaii.

Haleakala joins Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, Everglades National Park in Florida and Acadia National Park in Maine among the 16 parks selected. It is the 10th of the 16 images revealed thus far to honor the park service’s 100th anniversary. The next six will be revealed in the coming days.

Every year, the Postal Service receives approximately 40,000 suggestions for potential stamps. Only 25 topics make the cut, said spokesman Mark Saunders during a phone interview from USPS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The National Park Service is honored the postal service selected it out of thousands of suggestions, said NPS spokeswoman Kathy Kupper.

Today marks the first day of National Park Week to celebrate its centennial. Entrance fees at all national parks will be waived through April 24.