Le Jardin teacher wins HPU poetry award

Susan Lee St. John has been named the recipient of the James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry at Hawaii Pacific University.

Her winning poem, "Medusa’s Child," will be published in the upcoming issue of Hawaii Pacific Review, HPU’s literary magazine.

Judge and HPU associate English professor Patrice Wilson said, "I love how this poem, about a child with the rare disease that fuses bone matter until the person can no longer move or live, is as much about the speaker as the child," adding how it is able to "convey sentiment without sentimentalism, and reach into the reader’s heart."

St. John will receive a $250 cash award and recognition at HPU’s 15th annual Koolau Writing Workshops March 3 at the Hawaii Loa Campus. She teaches at Le Jardin Academy and is the Star Poets coordinator at Windward Community College.

The annual award is named after HPU alumnus James M. Vaughan, who established a fund to enhance the literature and poetry programs at the university.

Students invited to paint mural at stadium

With the completion of renovations last year, Aloha Stadium is inviting Oahu high school students to help create a collective mural on the theme "what the Aloha Stadium means to you."

The mural will extend from the main inner circle tunnel to the lower-level locker rooms.

Group, individual or school applicants must submit a sample of the original artwork they wish to add to the mural. No appropriated images, profanity, slang or racial images are allowed; sample artwork may be provided in either black-and-white or color.

All submissions become the property of Aloha Stadium and will not be returned.

If selected, student artists must be available to do their work at the stadium between either March 12-17, March 24-25 or March 31-April 1. All paint and supplies will be provided.

For an application, call 483-7133 or email Samantha.L.Spain@hawaii.gov no later than Feb. 10.

Island orchid lovers will get to show off

To paraphrase the Quran, bread might feed the body, but flowers feed the soul, and in Hawaii, orchids are the main course of any floral feast.

To celebrate this most exotic and varied bloom, and those who nurture them with pride, the Today section will run a list of orchid shows taking place in 2012 on Jan. 30.

To submit a free listing, email information on the name of the event, sponsor, date, time, location, a description of the event and contact information to features@staradvertiser.com. Tuesday is the deadline to submit a listing.