For the past two decades, HPA’s beloved friend and arguably greatest champion, Nona Hasegawa ’78, served on the school’s board of trustees, where she helped to shape HPA’s structure and stability, acting as both guardian for and manifestation of the school’s deepest held values and principles. She passed away unexpectedly on January 21, 2023, and left the school with a legacy of purest aloha—in ways both ineffable and concrete. We remember Nona with great love.
Kohala Girl
Nona Hasegawa was, as almost anyone from her HPA days can tell you, a Kohala Girl through and through. Her family lived in Kapaau, where Nona’s parents, Kiyoto and Frances, were both public school teachers. They believed sincerely in the power of education to transform lives, and so they made sacrifices so that all four of their children, Lila ’76, Nona ’78, Marc ’80, and Matthew ’81 could go to HPA.
In a 2018 interview with Ma Ke Kula, Nona spoke with gratitude and candor on this point:
I was very fortunate to be born to the family I was born to. I chose well!
My sister started to go to HPA as a day student… but by the time I was ready to go—and I went in 8th grade—the rules had changed and I had to board. I was on financial aid and a work study kind of job. We had four kids in our household so you know, there wasn’t a lot of money for private school.
But the boarding component, especially for a local kid like myself, was invaluable to me in terms of exposure and success later on in life. …I was a good student and a typical overachiever type; I did student council and cross country. And at that time we also went to school on Saturdays for half a day, so HPA was your whole life. But it was just completely a gift.
To Nona, living in the dorms was a great leveler—students from a broad array of backgrounds, experiences, and means lived together under the same roof, in identical rooms, sharing the same meals. Nona’s HPA experience prepared her for a purposeful life, in which hard work was the foundation for professional success, and loving relationships with family and friends gave her life meaning. Nona recognized HPA’s influence in her life, and spoke readily of it.
I think the HPA experience was a great equalizer. You could do and be anything you wanted. Hard work got you cross country championships. Hard work got you good grades. And it’s ironic because now I’m a financial planner and I’m around money all the time. But I learned early that the value in life wasn’t just how much money you had or what it could buy or anything, because again, our dorm rooms were all the same.
I think HPA gave me a real foundation for friendships, for responsibility… it gave me appreciation for education obviously, because that changes everything, and for hard work.
From HPA, Nona went on to Scripps College in Claremont, California, graduating with a degree in international economics. Later, she became a stockbroker and certified financial planner, ultimately landing at Stifel Nicolaus, where she opened and served as branch manager of the Olympia and Seattle offices.
Robert Budway ’76, HPA’s current board chair, knew Nona as a student and maintained a friendship with her over the years. They both served on the HPA board together. “Nona had to break many barriers as a professional. Being an Asian woman in the male-dominated financial services industry is very difficult,” Budway says. “Like all financial services professionals, Nona had to create her client base from scratch, earning the trust of potential clients from a combination of tenacity and marketing one’s self—and she had both characteristics in spades.” Budway recalled a particularly difficult moment early in Nona’s career when she flew to another city to meet a potential client she had been cultivating over the phone for weeks. “When the client realized Nona was Asian,” Budway recalled, “he immediately called her a racial slur and abruptly walked away. Nona was briefly shaken but undeterred in her pursuit of her chosen profession.”
Nona became one of the most valued financial advisors at Stifel. “And she achieved this,” Budaway says, “by using a calm, intelligent approach to showcase her expertise and her trustworthiness. She also effectively utilized the same approach on the HPA board. Her ‘Kohala girl’ background, professional success, and deep, enduring love for HPA underpinned her long tenure of board service.”
On the Right Track
Not only was Nona HPA’s first female student body president, she was also a tremendous student-athlete: cheerleading, basketball, cross-country, softball, and track all benefited from Nona’s attention during her time at HPA. Her teachers and coaches recognized that Nona was special, and found ways to bring her good sense and high spirits to bear on projects beyond the playing fields. Her cross country coach, Phil Connley, offered Nona a job helping out with summer school over the summer months—making her, essentially, a year-round resident. And her track coach, Stan Shutes, asked her to help build a track.
Stan Shutes was a mentor of mine. And he’s the one who told me, “After a while, you know you’ve got to give back to the school and you’ve got to be on the board. You’re just going to have to do it and do a good job and build the track.”
In 2001, Nona did as Shutes asked of her and joined the school’s board of trustees. She was among the very first to join the board from the mainland—the theory at the time being that friends and alumni no longer living in Hawai‘i were too far removed, and might not be able to attend meetings and events regularly. But Nona, of course, not only attended nearly every meeting and event throughout the many years of her service, but also broke the mold for engaging fellow alumni in supporting the school… beginning with the track.
Fundraising for HPA’s Stanford W. Shutes Track was a monumental effort. It began in earnest in 2008, and over the course of many years garnered support from hundreds of friends and alums of the school, with particularly generous support from Bill Doherty ’87, whose appreciation for Stan Shutes carries on today. Together, the friends and alums who supported the track were able to accomplish something tangible for the school and its students, while honoring the legacy of Stan Shutes. Asking friends and acquaintances to support a common cause isn’t always easy, but Nona believed earnestly in the endeavor, and she did it well.
“Nona was totally devoted to HPA,” her husband, Stew Cogan, shares. “That was clear from the time I first met Nona and it remained so until her death. She enthusiastically embraced everything the school stood for, and using her time, energy, and resources, helped the school in every way she could. Nona’s deep love of HPA was obvious and boundless. She considered her time there a gift she could never repay, but she certainly tried. And I would like to think she succeeded.”
During the course of Nona’s board service, the annual alumni giving rate to the school grew exponentially. And though she would be the last person to claim any sort of personal credit for the uptick of aloha, Nona’s efforts to change the culture and tone and spirit of being engaged were deeply felt.
HPA is my password on my iPhone, so I think about the school every day… I just have a deep love for the school because my standard line is “HPA changed my life.” And I have a really great life. I do believe that I owe the school and the people and the mission and all of that, for the life that I live now.
The Legacy of Nona
For more than two decades, Nona freely and gladly shared her smarts and spirit and aloha with HPA—a tremendous and beautiful gift. Nona’s overarching legacy to the school stems from all of who she was: wise, witty, adventurous, sharp, soft, loving, giving, and full of integrity; it comes from her outlook that a rising tide lifts all boats; and from her success in calling her fellow alums back to remember what they love most about the school.
“Nona’s heart for the school was just truly inspiring,” says Hannah Hind Candelario ’01 assistant head of school for advancement “…both in my professional work and as a fellow alumna. She was just so good. She will continue to move HPA in magnificent ways for generations to come.”
Nona’s concrete bequest to the school is a $1 million gift for financial aid. The Nona Fund for Financial Aid was established in July 2023 with this gift from Nona’s estate. As part of the school’s permanent endowment for financial aid, it will generate funding every year in perpetuity to support students who need help with the cost of attending HPA. As The Nona Fund grows, so too will its reach into the lives of young people who hope to participate in a rigorous education, shared in the company of good friends and adults who care for their well-being.
Although Nona is now lost to us, she has left behind an everlasting legacy for all of us who she has touched and loved, guaranteeing that she will live forever in our hearts and minds.
– Lila Scott ’76
Although in recent years HPA has worked to increase both the annual and endowed funds available for financial aid, the need for aid continues to grow, and Nona was passionate about doing everything possible to meet that need. The school’s modest endowment currently generates roughly 20% of the annual financial aid budget, which means that HPA must draw on its general operating funds and additional fundraising dollars to distribute aid. General operating funds are also needed, however, for operational costs: salaries, maintenance, insurance, and the like. Increasing the funds available for financial aid is the school’s greatest and perhaps most important long-term challenge.
“Nona was open about receiving financial aid and how it really was critical to her success academically,” Budway says. “She really was the model of what we, the board, the school, like to see: someone who may not have had the means to afford HPA, but through this school, reached her professional and personal ambitions, and then expressed her gratitude and love by giving back. The giving back part is important… it’s something she really wanted to see from others. She knew how giving back has a generative effect on the local community. Realizing that today’s students could be tomorrow’s next Nona is very motivating and inspiring. To me, that’s the legacy of Nona.”
HPA hosted memorial gatherings for Nona during Reunion Weekend, and also in May, when several of her classmates, including Nona’s roommate and life-long friend, Lisa Wood ’78, gathered to celebrate Nona’s life. “Nona was an incredible friend,” Woods says. “She would have been a star wherever she went. We are just fortunate that she chose to shine on us.” Woods says that Nona was also “a very faithful person. When Nona’s mother died, her belief that she would see her mother again gave her great hope and comfort. I think that is something we all can cling to,” Woods says. “One day we will have a reunion. We will all be together.”
In Nona’s honor, a koai‘a tree was planted next to HPA’s star compass, Pānānā o Kainoa, shortly after her passing. The plaque reads:
“When you have been at a place for a long time, it has a way of becoming a part of you. That’s what has happened to me. I know that I will never lose it! I just hope the rest of you can find the part that belongs to you!” – Nona Hasegawa 1978