Maneuvering that threatens to turn the three-tier state football tournament into a three-ring circus was big news this week. Thankfully, we had the Hawaii Hawaii School Athletic Association’s Hall of Honor and HMSA’s Kaimana Awards & Scholarship Program to distract us at least momentarily from the politics of prep sports.

Reflecting upon and celebrating the achievements and promise of this year’s 27 student-athlete honorees is a lot more enjoyable and inspiring.

The Hall of Honor, which was established in 1982, annually enshrines the state’s 12 top senior athletes and awards them each with a $2,000 scholarship from Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

This year’s winners, feted last Sunday, are Kayla Afoa (Kamehama), Kesi Ah-Hoy (Kahuku), Jocelyn Alo (Campbell), Lia Foster (Punahou), Hugh Hogland (‘Iolani), Kekaula Kaniho (Kahuku), Celena Molina (Konawaena), K.J. Pascua (‘Iolani), Kristen O’Handley (Kaiser), Ava Shipman (Seabury Hall), Tua Tagovailoa (Saint Louis) and Dane Yamashiro (‘Iolani).

The Kaimana Awards, which were announced at a ceremony Saturday, differ in that the winners aren’t necessarily dominant athletes; the 15 scholarships of $5,000 each “are awarded to inspirational students who’ve impacted others through their academic success, athletic participation, sportsmanship and service to their communities,” according to the criteria set by HMSA.

This year’s winners are Devin Eng (Mid-Pacific), Charles Fox (University), Michele Fujita (Pearl City), Ruby Galapon (Keaau), Kiara Gomard (Sacred Hearts), Vanessa Hernandez Jimenez (Kapaa), Sabrina Marvin (Hawaii Prep), Alexa Narayan (Maui Prep), Joey Pantil (Nanakuli), Carolyn Price (Island), Dorian Raboy-McGowan (Kamehameha-Maui), Elray Santiago Jr. (Campbell), Kanani Uluave (Kahuku), Ryan Watanabe (Pearl City) and Kacey Wong (Sacred Hearts).

Schools are also honored based on similar criteria; this year they are Parker, Keaau, Le Jardin, Hawaii Baptist, Kapaa, Lanai, Kamehameha-Maui, Kalaheo and Waipahu.

It hasn’t happened yet, but some year someone will win both of these scholarships. Several of this year’s Hall of Honor inductees displayed the off-the-chart grades, community service commitment and leadership attributes that are characteristic of Kaimana winners.

Yamashiro, a four-time state judo champion, is among those with all of those characteristics and might have been a Kaimana winner if he’d applied. Folks who know him weren’t surprised that he sent hand-written thank you notes to the Hall of Honor selection committee members.

All 27 of these young men and women are spectacularly gifted and outstanding in their own ways. Kaimana Award winner Santiago’s school sports participation was limited to two years on the Campbell cross country team. But he was also a 3.95 GPA student, a canoe club member, and put in hundreds of volunteer hours, including community clean-ups with several groups.

“I want to come back (after college) and give to the land, be a steward of the land. The land is the key to the sustainability of our culture,” said Santiago, who is originally from Molokai and of native Hawaiian heritage. “Without the land we have no culture. I want to pursue that, how to preserve our native plants and animals.”

Santiago is a water man at heart, but will go to college at Northern Arizona.

“It’s the desert, but I love new experiences,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fresh and new.”

In his application letter, Santiago wrote of lacking material things, including not having “a bed until my sophomore year of high school.” But he wrote of the more important things being relationships and community, and a passion to help lift others.

HMSA senior vice president Elisa Yadao spoke of many of the scholarship winners accomplishing so much despite being “in the midst of personal hardship.”

She continued: “We live in troubled times. It seems that nearly every day there’s a terrible reminder of how dangerous the world has become.

“But today we celebrate these young women and men who cast a wonderful, hopeful, bright light and remind us with their achievements that optimism, positivity and the simple joy of doing things for others will rule the day.”