Central East Maui Little League Lahaina native gets special back-to-school welcome

WAILUKU, Hawaii (KHON2) — The Maui Little Leaguers returned home over the weekend from the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Monday was back to school for most of the kids in central Maui but one of them returned to school at Lahaina Intermediate.

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For Kolten Magno, today was anything but a normal first day of the school year. “It was crazy, put up posters, they gave me leis. It was fun,” Kolten said.

After being excused from the first two weeks of classes, the school wanted to give him a hero’s welcome.

It was a proud mom moment. I got calls from a couple teachers asking when Kolton was coming back to school and they really wanted to make him feel special. All the texting in the phone calls early this morning trying to coordinate ‘what time are you leaving the house? What are you coming up the hill?’

Kim Ann Magno, Kolten’s mom

It was a proud moment for sure for Kolten and his family, but it wasn’t their first stop of the day.

Their first stop was at their family home, which was amongst the thousands of homes consumed in last summer’s Lahaina wildfire.

Kolten was fortunate in that Central Maui welcomed him into their ohana, which led to their amazing journey to Pennsylvania. On Monday, he wanted to share a bit of Williamsport with Lahaina.

“Leis I got from parents that gave me leis. I put it on the sign at my house. And the dirt I got was to remember the fun at Williamsport,” Kolten explained.

Kim was ready for the big welcome at school, but even this one caught her off guard.

“The stop at home was unexpected. That one he asked if he could stop at home before going to school and I was like of course we can. He brought a bag of dirt and he left on the counter. And I was like ‘What is this? What are you doing?” and he said that’s from the field that we played on. All the boys wanted to bring a little piece of that home with us. I said I don’t think it belongs on the counter and he said no I want to take it home. And I was like oh yeah, I know that a lot I know that that meant a lot to him so we did that before school today.”

After nearly a month-long journey, it’s time to return back to life as somewhat normal, but with one of the best summer vacation stories of all time.

And there’s no rest for Kolten. Not only was it back to school today, but it was back to practice with his Pop Warner football team.