Aloha nui!

My Story

I am truly grateful to call Hawaiʻi my home.  My ʻukulele journey began at the humble age of 5.  Like most youth, I began lessons at the Roy Sakuma ʻUkulele Studios.  Stopping after only a year of lessons, I continued to play ʻukulele at school.  But once middle school came, my ʻukulele found it’s way to the back of a bedroom closet, and I didn’t touch the instrument for four years.

That was until my junior year of high school.  Struggling through the drudgery of honors and AP classes, I needed an outlet that would allow me some relief from stress.  I returned to the Roy Sakuma Studios, where after four months as a student, was invited to train to become an instructor.  For the next 12 years, I taught under Roy Sakuma, teaching students as old as 5 to as young as 93.

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In 2014, I became friends with two young ladies.  At the time, we never could have conceived that together we would make up the young, dynamic trio known as Keʻolu. Our blend of harmonies and our take on Hawaiian music with contemporary styles has been well received throughout the islands and the world.  In 2019, I was fortunate and blessed to become a sponsored artist of Kanileʻa ʻUkulele.

Throughout the years, I have been invited to be an instructor at various workshops and community events, including ʻUkulele Club of Hawaiʻi, Craig and Sarah’s Annual ʻukulele retreat, and Craig and Sarah’s online workshop series.  Upon retiring from the studio in 2023, I continued on to pursue other ventures in the ʻukulele community and am now a board member of the ʻukulele non-profit, Four Strings at a Time.

In my professional life, I am an elementary educator. I graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with my bachelor’s degree in general elementary education, and then graduated in 2020 with my master’s degree (during the heart of the pandemic!) in curriculum studies.  During the day, I am a third grade teacher at a private school on the island of Oʻahu.