Waianae High School students examine
a section of the AIDS quilt.
Quilt delivers AIDS
message to Waianae
Quilt panels, including one for
By Debra Barayuga
a beloved teacher, will be part of an
international memorial
Star-BulletinJackie Beckman knew what to do when asked to design a square for a quilt panel in memory of a former teacher who died of AIDS. Cows crossed her mind.
Mike Shuttlefield, an English, newswriting and yearbook teacher loved by faculty and students at Waianae High School, loved cows and displayed them all over his classroom. He died in 1993.
Beckman, now a special education English teacher at Waianae, was one of 14 teachers who designed and created a quilt panel honoring Shuttlefield.
The panel is one of eight created by Waianae students and teachers that will be added to the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, begun 10 years ago in San Francisco to remember people who have died of AIDS.
What began as 1,900 panels has grown to just over 43,077 panels containing 78,656 names of people who have died of AIDS worldwide.
Waianae was informed five weeks ago that it had been chosen to participate in the National High School Quilt program, which gives schools across the country an opportunity to display sections of the quilt for up to a week.
Thirty-two panels honoring people with a link to Hawaii will be on display at Waianae High School starting today.
Each panel is 3 feet by 6 feet, the size of graves, to demonstrate the enormity of the epidemic.
The public is invited to an opening ceremony in the school cafeteria from 7 to 9 p.m. today. The project attracted volunteers from all over the school community.
"I'm so overwhelmed and impressed -- people I don't even know have been giving of their time and energy without expectation of getting anything in return," said Christine Ho, art teacher at Waianae who headed the campaign to bring the quilt to Waianae.
Nearly 100 of her students have devoted class, lunch and after school hours and worked nearly nonstop the past two weeks to complete panels for today's opening. They had been looking forward to seeing panels of the AIDS memorial quilt ever since Ho showed them videotapes of a display in Washington that ran about a mile from the White House to the Washington Monument.
The students designed the panels after reading biographies of the victims. Ipu, lei, angels and names adorn the eight panels. "The quilts show so much love from family, friends and lovers, and their personality shines through," Ho said.
She was impressed seeing her students sitting together at a table as though at a quilting bee and chatting to people they usually don't talk to about AIDS.
The Waianae student council, Spanish Club, ROTC, mass media class, peer educators and teachers have volunteered to assist throughout AIDS Awareness Week, which starts today.
For Beckman, it was a way to say goodbye to a teacher who once was reduced to tears when she and a friend gave him a cow pinata they had made in Spanish class.She was sick with the flu when she heard Shuttlefield was in the hospital. He died before she could visit him.
Beckman's students had difficulty comprehending the impact AIDS has had on thousands of people until she told them her high school teacher died of AIDS."I don't think they got the full picture until I told them -- it got their attention," said Beckman.
Bringing people with the HIV virus on campus to speak to students and the quilt project has helped break down stereotypes of AIDS as a gay disease and helped combat homophobia, Ho said.
"We hope people realize that art is life -- and art, health and learning about AIDS is all connected," she said. "We also hope they would learn to be kind to others and have more compassion."
Participating in the project has raised students' self-esteem knowing they have created something that will become part of a national statement, she added.
"I think the whole project is really wonderful -- to get kids to be aware and look at AIDS not in a negative light," said Paula Forsyth, whose daughter Denny helped design one of the panels.
To arrange a visit, call 697-7056.
Also, sponsors are being sought to help pay for NAMES Project/AIDS Memorial T-shirts. Checks may be made to: The NAMES Project, attn: Christine Ho, c/o Waianae High School, 85-251 Farrington Highway, Waianae 96792.
