Leslie Uri is a senior at Waimea High School and this year’s Miss Kauai Veteran.
Two years ago, she joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Waimea High School, and said that when she saw how one of her fellow JROTC cadets in the role at the Veterans Day parade — “the way she presented herself, the way she welcomed people” — Uri turned to her officer and said, “Major, when I’m a senior, I want to be like her.”
This will be Uri’s third year with the JROTC. She said she didn’t join during her freshmen year because the program sounded scary. That turned out to be a misconception.
“I thought the officers would just yell at my face,” she said. “But it wasn’t like that at all.”
The Army JROTC’s mission is “to motivate young people to be better citizens,” and Uri said she and her fellow cadets at Waimea High do that through volunteer work and community outreach.
She does over 100 hours of community service every year, volunteering in all kinds of capacities. Uri said one of her favorite events is an annual beach outing for elderly patients at Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital.
But, Uri said, she and her fellow JROTC cadets are willing to help with any organization or function that could have a positive impact, and there are a lot of them. Waimea High’s JROTC battalion is the biggest on the island with 188 cadets, nearly a third of the student body.
Uri spent the first half of her young life in the Philippines. At age 10 — she’s 17 now — Uri came to Kauai with her dad, and it wasn’t easy at first. They had to leave her mother behind initially. It would be three years before she got approved for a visa.
“It was really hard,” Uri said, remembering how her family struggled during that time. “But we had to go through it. We pulled through it.”
Uri doesn’t just scrape by, either. On top of a dozen or so hours of community service each month, she works at the Waimea Public Library. She likes it. The building is air-conditioned, plus, she said, ”I get to look at cool books.”
But, really, Uri started working because she felt a responsibility to her family.
“When I started driving, I wanted a job so I wouldn’t have to burden my parents,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to ask for gas money.”
Somehow, Uri is finding time to fill out college applications, too. She’s already been accepted to University of Hawaii at Hilo, but that’s her backup school. She really wants to go to a university on the mainland, and is applying to colleges in Nebraska, Colorado and Washington because she said she wants to get out and experience the world.
College is expensive, but Uri is working on that. The Miss Kauai Veteran crown comes with a $1,000 scholarship, and she just won another one on Thursday worth $2,000 from the YWCA.
Uri plays sports, too. She’s on her school’s air riflery team and plays tennis. The Waimea High girls won the Kauai Interscholastic Federation championship this year in air riflery, and Uri said she and her teammates just got back from the state tournament on Oahu.
•••
Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
