Punabots Blue takes seventh at championship

Punahou School's middle-school robotics team, Punabots Blue, placed seventh out of more than 80 teams at the national FIRST LEGO League championships in Atlanta over the weekend.

The team, made up of six students from Punahou and one from Hanahauoli, won the Hawaii state championships in December. They are in the fourth and fifth grades.

In the high school competition, Hawaii was represented by more than 100 students from seven schools at the FIRST Robotics World Championship.

After nearly 150 qualifying matches, Waialua High School reached the quarterfinals in the Archimedes Division, and McKinley High School made it to the quarterfinals in the Curie Division, each with 86 teams, according to a news release. Overall, McKinley ranked 13th in its division.

3 groups to get OHA grants

The board of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has approved $375,000 in community grants.

The recipients are Bishop Museum, the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts and the King William Charles Lunalilo Trust Estate.

OHA said Friday that the money will be used for projects linking generations of Hawaiian tradition across pre-contact, post-contact and modern times.

The estate received $150,000 to make whole the successful restoration of King Lunalilo's royal tomb at Kawaiaha'o Church.

OHA awarded the academy $125,000 for a first-ever Na Hoku o Hawaii Music Conference and educational workshops.

Bishop Museum received $100,000 for E Ku Ana ka Paia: Unification, Responsibility, and the “;Ku Images”; exhibit.

Obama taps Kippen for post

President Barack Obama recently appointed the head of the Native Hawaiian Education Council to serve as a member of the Commission on U.S. Presidential Scholars.

Colin Kippen is the only commissioner from Hawaii and is the first Hawaiian to be appointed by the president to serve on the commission. Obama appointed 11 other commissioners from the business, arts, science, technology and education fields from around the country.

Kippen, longtime advocate for the rights of Hawaiians, American Indians and Alaskan natives, also served as senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and was chairman of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Review Committee. Kippen previously served as a trial attorney and deputy prosecutor in Seattle and as a tribal judge and appellate justice for Indian tribes in Oregon and Washington.

The commission honors graduating high school seniors who exemplify outstanding academic achievement, artistic excellence, leadership and community service.

Cancer program is lauded

Hawaii Medical Center East has received the 2009 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons for “;excellence”; in its cancer program.

It is one of only 82 programs to receive such an award out of 432 surveyed by the commission last year.

“;There is no higher designation a community cancer center can receive”; from the commission, Dr. Collin Dang, hospital chief executive officer, said in a news release.

The cancer program at Hawaii Medical Center East includes the state's only Thoracic Tumor Clinic and comprehensive Liver Center, as well as the only stem cell transplant program in Hawaii and the Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

The Commission on Cancer award is given to facilities that exhibit a high level of compliance in cancer committee leadership, cancer data management, research, community outreach and quality improvement.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

$1.5M grant will protect island forest

The federal government has awarded $1.5 million to help safeguard the Kainalu Forest Watershed on Molokai.

An additional $1 million will benefit the Ottoville Rainforest Preserve in American Samoa.

The money is part of $72 million in Forest Legacy Program grants announced Wednesday in Washington by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The awards are used to permanently protect private forest land in 33 states and U.S. territories.

The Forest Legacy Program works directly with states to protect privately owned forests from conversion to housing or other uses that would threaten the conservation, management and restoration of the nation's forests.

Program lands are protected through conservation easements or property acquisitions.