Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Manumalo Academy, Home of the Flames, held their Commencement Ceremony for their fourteen graduates, on Friday, May 26, 2023 at their school chapel. Class of 2023’s theme was “Stand Firm in Faith”, an excerpt from 1 Cor. 16:13-14, pointing to how the graduates will move forward on their life journeys.

Governor Lemanu P. S. Mauga was a special guest and Ms. Aitulaga Alofa, an alumni of Manumalo Academy, Class of 2019 was the keynote speaker. In 2019, Ms. Alofa was offered a fully qualified appointment by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Top honors of the graduating class went to Ron Gabriel Flores Mendoza, who received the Valedictorian award, while there were three (3) Co-Salutatorians sharing honors — Jason Qi, Lana Siautapini Snow and Paul Jing Hao Liang. 

Mendoza’s academic achievements included not only the highest SAT score, and spotlighted his three-time perfect score in the SAT Math section, but also placed first overall in the island wide math competition, earned the Rotary 4-Way Test and is a member of the National Honor Society — just to name a few.

For college, he received 14 acceptance letters with scholarship offers, with his final choice being to attend Southern Utah University to major in Biomedical Engineering. 

For the three co-salutatorians: Qi was accepted at 5 universities, and has chosen to attend UC Davis with a major in Psychology; Liang received offers from three (3) universities and has accepted Texas Tech University with a major in Computer Science; and, Ms. Snow, who is President of the Manumalo Academy Student Government Association, was accepted with offers of scholarships to four (4) universities and has chosen to attend Georgetown University with a major in Political Economics. 

Samoa News would like to extend a huge congratulations to Manumalo Academy’s graduating Class of 2023 and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.