By Ana Reidy, Kahuku High Correspondent
and Kanawai Cabrinha

On Saturday, April 5, 2008, Kahuku high's very own band "Knotty Love" competed in the State Battle of the Bands contest at the Waikiki Shell. The Kahuku campus was buzzing with excitement the first week back from Spring Break because everyone had seen or heard about the commercial advertising the Brown Bag competition where they announced someone from Kahuku High would be performing live:

Senior Jen Nahoopii from Kaneohe and Lani Latronic from Sunset fought against 15 other public and private high school entrants from around the state to win the grand prize of $2,000.

To be eligible to compete in the competition, Nahoopii and Latronic created an original song entitled "Country Anthem" in advocation of keeping the country country. They then produced their own music video and posted it on the official Brown Bag to Stardom website. Anyone could view the site and vote on the videos they liked the best; the videos with the most votes were welcomed to the state competition.

At states the girls competed with the very best. Latronic was extremely nervous before the show but luckily Nahoopii was much more calm. They preformed flawlessly and had the crowd roaring by the end. Of course, the girls are much more critical of themselves.

Kahuku High school did their part to support Latronic and Nahoopii in the duet's night of honor. The school arranged to have a bus taken out to the Waikiki Shell so that more students would be able to go and see their classmates in action. Many first-time performers would prefer to keep their classmates away but not Latronic and Nahoopii. They both "really appreciated all the support from the school" and wanted everyone to come out.

For a very long time Nahoopii and Latronic dreamed of starting up a band and competing in the Brown Bag to Stardom Competition. But many years passed before they actually started acting on their dream. This year they made a firm decision to compete. Close friend of both Latronic and Nahoopii, Adi Tabua, stated, "Whenever we would go hang out they brought the ukulele and would sing and jam wherever they were."

Like their interesting past they hope to have an interesting future. Both Latronic and Nahoopii hope to keep singing together and even have successful careers as performers. Latronic explains, "We hope that this is not the end and that we can continue to make music. This contest should really give us a big push in the right direction."