As those familiar with this blog site know, the location of Purgatory ranges from 15 Craigside to the entirety of Hawaii. Today, the latter.
How many of you know that we have a state insect? Nine years ago some Gifted and Talented 5th-graders at Pearl Ridge Elementary went beyond the usual learning process of how legislation is created by actually influencing the Hawaii State Legislature to introduce a bill to select the first state insect. Their two finalists were the Kamehameha Butterfly (pulelehua, Vanessa tameamea) and Hawaiian happy-face spider.
Let me digress a bit to mention that the Department of Education has a program for the Gifted and Talented, and mostly because of George Carter, who with the help of Ed Jurkens, both from SERTOMA, in 1972 badgered the education leadership to start the effort. They actually formed a club for the very gifted high school students, and 46 years later, it is still going strong as the George B. Carter Serteens Club of Hawaii.
George actually wrote a book on the above. I was there at the beginning, and remember meeting with them the Hawaii school superintendent, who was against such an effort, for this would have been promoting elitism. I also fondly recall the first Serteens class, for they mostly went on to become doctors, TV news anchors and military leaders. Every so often I still provide a lecture, and are awed at how much smarter most of them are compared to me.
In any case these 5th-grade students noted that the Hawaiian happy-face spider was only found in Hawaiian rainforests, and nowhere else in the world, while the Kamehameha Butterfly was one of only two endemic butterflies to Hawaii, somehow getting here millions of years ago.
In any case these 5th-grade students noted that the Hawaiian happy-face spider was only found in Hawaiian rainforests, and nowhere else in the world, while the Kamehameha Butterfly was one of only two endemic butterflies to Hawaii, somehow getting here millions of years ago.
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