Main Article: Celebrating 100 Years of Storytelling
Laurie Uemoto ’75 Chang returned to campus in early November with a sense of deep familiarity and pride. Standing in the courtyard of the Sullivan Building, she paused, taking in a place that once shaped much of her professional life. “This was my former stomping grounds,” she said with a smile. “My office was right there, next to the Sullivan Boardroom – a place where so many stories, ideas and deadlines came to life.”
Chang, a proud alumna and the editor of the Punahou Bulletin from 1997 – 2005, has warm recollections of her years at the School. “It was an incredibly meaningful time,” she says. “I am grateful to have been able to help tell the stories of a community as vibrant and caring as Punahou, capturing the voices that bring our School to life and chronicling traditions like Carnival and campus transformations.”
Before her eight years as editor, Chang worked as an account executive at Stryker Weiner & Yokota Public Relations, followed by several years as a communications specialist at Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women and Children, where both of her sons were born.
As her children grew, Chang felt increasingly drawn to Punahou. When Lee Ann Bowman, the magazine’s longtime editor, stepped down, Chang knew she had to apply. She loved the community and wanted to be closer to her sons’ school lives – something that later became a reality when Christopher Chang ’08 and Alex Chang ’11 both attended Punahou. “I came to Punahou in Grade 10 and always wanted my kids to have the same experience,” she says. “It was a privilege to do the work I did and to be so close to them.”
Balancing the roles of Bulletin editor and mom was a juggling act filled with takeout dinners and late nights at the office, but Chang embraced it with dedication. She loved connecting people through authentic storytelling.
“I wanted my stories to elevate student and alumni voices, and reflect how Punahou’s legacy lives on through the values, choices and imagination of its community.”
During her tenure, Chang introduced fresh ideas that shaped the magazine’s content. She launched the Buff ’n Blue Journal (now Take Note), a collection of short blurbs about happenings at the School. She added features such as Puns ’n Print, which highlights alumni authors, and Nā Hali‘a Aloha, which reprinted beloved stories from years past.
Chang was inspired by editorial trends of the period, including narrative-driven feature writing and the growing impact of vivid photography. All of these approaches helped shape the Bulletin.
I am grateful to have been able to help tell the stories of a community as vibrant and caring as Punahou, capturing the voices that bring our School to life and chronicling traditions like Carnival and campus transformations.”
– Laurie Uemoto ’75 Chang, Editor 1997 – 2005
After she stepped down as editor, Chang turned to nurturing the next generation of storytellers. She served as a substitute English teacher at Case Middle School, then later at ‘Iolani School, where she eventually taught Grade 9 English and introductory journalism for five years.
In retirement, Chang co-founded the Aloha Tree Alliance (ATA) in 2020, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring Hawai‘i’s watersheds by removing invasive species and planting native trees and shrubs. She remains deeply engaged in storytelling, now focused on the environment and the passionate volunteers who power ATA. “Through our work in watershed restoration, environmental education and volunteer engagement, I’ve seen again how stories – of place, purpose and community – bring people together and inspire stewardship.”
To celebrate her many contributions to the publication, we asked Chang to select three Punahou Bulletin stories from her years as editor that still resonate with her and with the community. It was not an easy task – she crafted hundreds of articles – but these remain especially memorable.
Fall 1999 – A Life’s Calling to Public Service
Chang did not author this piece, but she was the editorial visionary behind it. On a whim, she reached out to then-State Senator Barack Obama ’79, almost a decade before he became the Democratic nominee for president. “It was early in his political career,” she says. “Obama was a rising figure in Chicago and I sensed something remarkable in his trajectory. He stood out for his integrity and gift for bringing people together. The ideas he expressed about empathy, humility, tolerance, and service reflected values at the heart of Hawai‘i and Punahou.”
Chang remembers Punahou President Jim Scott’s refrain that left a lasting impression on generations of students and alumni: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” That commitment to public service was reflected in Obama’s work and worldview.
Chang vividly recalls calling Obama’s Senate office from her Sullivan Building desk. “I didn’t think anyone would pick up, but it was worth a try,” she says. To her surprise, his assistant answered. Obama couldn’t schedule an interview, but he did send an essay that illustrated how the lessons of tolerance, compassion and belonging in Hawai‘i could shape a life devoted to public service and leadership. The office also sent a striking photo of himself, Michelle Obama, and their one-year-old daughter Malia Ann. “It was such an unexpected gift,” she says. “That simple instinct to make the call remains one of the most meaningful editorial moments of my career.”
In December 2004, Chang experienced a full-circle moment when Obama visited Punahou and spoke to more than 400 students in a packed Thurston Chapel. He urged them to “measure their lives not by what they learned in class, but by how they lived their values and stood up for what was right.” Chang and Laurel Bowers ’71 Husain covered the visit in a story titled “Dream Big” for the Bulletin’s Spring 2005 issue.
Summer 2003 – Teen Talk
This feature highlighted the voices of ten Millennials across the Academy. It stands out to Chang because it captured a moment of transition – the arrival of a new millennium, the expansion of digital technology and an increasingly interconnected world.
“We had entered a new century, and I wanted to hear from members of this generation who were coming of age in a rapidly changing world,” she says. “It was such fun. The students responded with such unfiltered honesty. They weren’t trying to impress, only to express what they thought, feared and hoped for. They were bold, brash and refreshingly candid.”
Fall 2003 – Conserving Hawai‘i’s Water Future
More than twenty years later, this article remains one of Chang’s favorites because of the diverse perspectives it brought together. “I was drawn to how our limited water resources were being stewarded amid the pressures of development and climate change. This feature allowed me to tell that story through the voices of eight influential alumni who were leading efforts to illuminate and protect Hawai‘i’s precious water systems,” she says.
The introduction was written by William Tam ’66, an attorney specializing in water and resource law who had served as deputy attorney general to the State Water Commission. Other contributors included Bill Paty ‘38, Richard Cox ’38, Carol Wilcox ’60, Charlie Reppun ’65, Joe Kaakua ’67, Peter Young ’70, and Suzanne Case ’74.
The piece was unusual in that it was not directly tied to academic or student life on campus. “It was much broader,” Chang says. “It was both educational and deeply rooted in aloha ‘a-ina, revealing Hawai‘i’s water future was not just about science or policy, but about shared responsibility and continuity.”
For Chang, the topic came naturally. The School has long been rooted in environmental stewardship, and the subject resonated with her personally. “When I worked on this feature, I had no idea I’d one day co-found a nonprofit focused on climate resilience,” she says. “In hindsight, it was a quiet foreshadowing of my future.”
