Name: Lanakila Kelliher
Age: 18
School: Baldwin High
Favorite subject: Art
Pastimes: Skim boarding
Future: Artist

"Now she's 24. She has two children and a husband. It made her such a strong person, and I admire her so much," Kelliher said.

Kelliher will attend the University of Hawaii-Manoa this fall as a Sterling Scholar Award winner in art.

Her former teacher Janet Sato said Kelliher is talented, well-rounded, responsible and has reached a higher plane in her art work.

"She's learned to portray the beauty in things, rather than portray beautiful things," Sato said.

Kelliher's parents, Mark and Karen Kelliher, are artists. Lanakila Kelliher remembers her youth seemed full of "things to play with" from crayons to pastels whenever she entered their studios.

"Hopefully, I'll be able to create art to survive," she said.

Kelliher enjoys radical skim boarding at Big Beach in Makena. The sport involves riding a board on a thin sheet of shoreline water into the face of a shore-breaking wave, riding it plunging down onto the sand.

She also does murals on bathroom walls and buildings for free or as a community volunteer. Some of her work is on the walls at Kamaole beach bathrooms and a friend's building in Paia.

"It helps beautify the community. You feel you're a part of everything," she said.