Hawaii Baptist Academy - History

History

In 1944 the Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia pledged $125,000 toward a school in Hawaii. The Southern Baptist Convention Foreign Mission Board began the school in 1947, assigning Southern Baptist Convention missionaries Hugh P. and Mary McCormick to carry out the project.

The school opened in 1949 in surplus Army barracks on a parcel of land purchased at 1234 Heulu Street in Makiki with thirty-six seventh and eighth grade students. It graduated its first students in 1954. The school was transferred to the Hawaii Baptist Convention in 1960. Formerly located near Roosevelt High School in Makiki, it moved to its present location in Nuʻuanu Valley in Honolulu in 1975. In 1987, the elementary school was moved to a second campus one half of a mile away. Hawaii Baptist Academy is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and is the largest Baptist school in the state.

Before relocating to the current Middle and High School campus in Nuʻuanu, HBA held court for some time at Makiki Christian Church.

In 1972, the governing body of the Southern Baptist churches authorized purchase of the Robertson Estate on the Pali Highway for $553,000. Dan Kong resigned his ministry at Olivet Baptist Church in order to become Vice President and Development Director of the school in 1973. In order to raise funding for the purchase, Kong and Hawaii Baptist Academy president Stan Sagert began a fund raising tour among potential mainland donars and institutions. By 1977, they had created the Mainland Advisory Council. Overall, mainland contributions have accounted for 70 Percent of campus building costs.

The Nuʻuanu Campus, now called the Stan Sagert Campus, welcomed its first students in 1975 with the class of 1976 being the first to graduate from the new campus. The elementary campus shared grounds with Central Baptist Church until it moved to the former Sacred Hearts Convent in Nuʻuanu. HBA also had a small elementary campus in Nānākuli (West Oʻahu), located at Nānākuli Baptist Church. This campus was relocated to property in Waiʻanae in the mid-1980s, where it remained until it was eventually closed in 1997.