1/2
Swipe or click to see more
COURTESY HHSAA
Belise Swartwood is the third Mililani female swimmer selected to the Hall of Honor, joining Keiko Price in 1996 and track athlete Zola O’Donnell, who also lettered in swimming last season.
2/2
Swipe or click to see more
COURTESY HHSAA
Belise Swartwood, the 2024 Mililani valedictorian, is a five-time OIA champion in individual swimming events.
Select an option below to continue reading this premium story.
Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading.
Belise Swartwood has done enough in her high school career in a swimming pool alone to be worthy of her Hall of Honor recognition.
Throw in her time spent in a classroom, which includes 15 Advanced Placement classes, and the hours she has grinded playing the violin as she now does in the Hawaii Youth Symphony as the Concert Masters in Youth Symphony I, and Swartwood is indeed in a class of her own.
The 2024 Mililani valedictorian is a five-time OIA champion in individual swimming events. She won her first individual state championship in the 200 individual medley as a junior and doubled that total as a senior, repeating in the 200 IM while also claiming gold in the 500 freestyle.
It is no surprise her best event is the one that requires the highly demanding discipline of mastering four different swimming strokes. The bigger the challenge, the more Belise seems to rise to the occasion.
Swartwood is the third Mililani female swimmer selected to the Hall of Honor, joining Keiko Price in 1996 and track athlete Zola O’Donnell, who also lettered in swimming last season.
Her jump to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge in the fall, where she will continue her swimming career, is a daunting task on paper, but one Swartwood has shown her entire life she is more than capable of handling.
—
Meet the 2024 inductees
>> Kamehameha’s Adrianna Arquette
>> Kalani’s Yuta Cole
>> Punahou’s Carly Cormack
>> Lanai’s Diesel Del Rosario
>> Kahuku’s Maia Esera
>> Kamehameha-Hawaii’s Maela Honma
>> Punahou’s Payton Jim On
>> Mid-Pacific’s Logan Lau
>> Hawaii Prep’s Brooke Samura
>> Mililani’s Belise Swartwood
>> Punahou’s Lulu Uluave
>> Kaimuki’s Jeremiah White