HISTORY OF HAWAIIAN MISSION ACADEMY

The educational work of the Seventh-day Adventists in the Hawaiian Islands started in 1894 with a boarding school for boys, under the leadership of H.H. Brand.  This school was named the Anglo-Chinese Academy in 1897 when Professor and Mrs. W.E. Howell came to Honolulu to head the institution.

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The school grew rapidly and prominent merchants and citizens enrolled their sons.  To accommodate the expanding enrollment, several changes in location were made until Bethel Grammar, as it was known then, located on Keeaumoku street, added secondary grades.  Again, increase enrollment called for more adequate quarters.  In 1920, several properties on Makiki street were secured and a combined elementary and secondary school designed to accommodate the entire constituency of the Hawaiian Missions of Seventh-day Adventists was built.  Thus, the name, Hawaiian Mission Academy.

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Steady growth in enrollment reached a climax during World War II.  In 1946, the estate of former Princess Abigail Kawananakoa Campbell property on Pensacola street, royal Hawaiian land, became available as a site for a new secondary school.  Construction began in the summer of 1949 and the secondary school and its administrative offices were moved to the campus in December, 1949.  At the same time, the elementary school remained at the Makiki street campus.

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Hawaiian Mission Academy and the Hawaii Conference of Seventh-day Adventists remains committed to Christian education as the 2nd largest Christian educational system in the world (7,579 schools worldwide) with 8 elementary schools throughout the Hawaiian Islands.