On Friday, May 1, Radford High School students from various clubs and leadership classes hosted Radford’s annual May Day performance where Pacific and Islander cultures were celebrated through music and dance.

The ceremony took place inside of Radford’s gymnasium and opened with the JROTC forming two parallel lines of sabers which created a passageway. The JROTC color guard then entered through the sabers for the national anthem as well as Hawai’i Pono’ī. Once the color guard left the building, the coronation ceremony began.

Eight pairs of students (male and female) entered through the sabers, each pair representing one of Hawai’i’s eight islands. Students representing visiting nations, which included Samoa, Tonga, Micronesia, Korea, Puerto Rico and others also entered.

Once the representatives of all eight Hawaiian islands as well as those of the visiting nations were gathered before the stage, each of the women representing the islands then performed her own individual hula dance. This culminated in the crowning of the May Day king and queen: king Kalei Ng (12) and queen Aurianna Perreira-Bolosan (12).

The ceremony illustrated the uniqueness of different Polynesian, Pacific and otherwise island cultures across the globe which honored both the local Hawaiian culture and foreign cultures of the visiting nations—celebrating unity and respect among all tribes, nations and tongues.