Hawaii's Super Students

Name: Nathan Stierli
Age: 17
School: St. Louis School
Favorite subject: History
Future: Political science

He compiled a book of poems on something teen-agers experience for the first time: love.

"I do it to express my feelings," Stierli said. "A lot of it is my view on love. It's about emotional experiences. It really depends on what happens at the time or mood."

A junior at St. Louis School, Stierli scored a perfect 800 on the verbal portion of the Scholastic Assessment Test. He scored 600 on the math portion.

The son of Wayne and Donna Stierli has a 4.04 grade average and is ranked fourth in his class. He also has a black belt in kung fu and wants to go to Princeton University.

"He is intellectually inquisitive, always asking questions and has great ideas," said Richard Ochner, advanced English teacher.

For a class assignment instead of writing an essay, he wrote a poem on Bosnia, said Sister Laola Hironaka, advanced U.S history teacher. The poem was translated into French and published in the Pacific Asian Affairs Council newsletter.

"He could relate to kids next door and kids far away," Hironaka said. "He has a personality that makes people laugh. He is a gem of a person."

Stierli shares his poetry with his male friends.

"Now, they seem to be sharing a lot of the same feelings," he said. "When I show it to them, they can critique it and share."