On May 9, 2018, James Campbell High School’s Saber Battalion held their 2017-2018 End of the Year Award’s Ceremony. After successfully earning Distinguished Unit with Honors, the Saber Battalion celebrated the individual awards their cadets have earned. Multiple awards were presented each identifying the hard work and growth the cadets put in during their time with the unit. The ceremony opened with the presentation of the National and Hawaiian flags and a blessing from Kumu Jonathan Makaniʻolu Honda.

Besides presenting the various certificates and medals, the Saber Battalion allotted a section in their awards ceremony to identify the graduation seniors and highlight their future plans. Announcing their future plans and bestowing the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps completion cord, permitted the Naval Science 3 and 4 year students with the bliss of accomplishing the rigorous course.

Other than recognizing the awardees and the seniors, a special report was made to identify Senior Chief Linda Naki who is Retired Navy and committed her time to the Saber Battalion since the beginning of the program in 1993. Senior Chief Naki was primarily in charge of the Naval Science 2 cadets as well her block period class. However, she has always reserved time for all of the cadets in Campbell’s Navy JROTC unit. This upcoming Fall semester for the year of 2018 will be the last six months that she will have with the Saber Battalion making her time as a Naval Science Instructor add up to a total of 25 years.

Also, the annual change of command ceremony occurred to properly and formally represent the transition of authority and responsibility between the previous commander, Cadet Commander Jayna Tell to the executive officer, Cadet Lieutenant Commander Reina Pagtakhan. With this transition, the upcoming commander made it her duty to help encourage her subordinate cadets and accomplish necessary jobs with the assistance of her fellow cadets.