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Trojan Times

The Student News Site of Mililani High School

Trojan Times

The Student News Site of Mililani High School

Trojan Times

The Cost of Paradise
Dannika Pila and Arie YamasakiFebruary 7, 2024
Left to right: Trumpets Rylan Akau-Morgan, Peyton Kahiapo and Skylar Hamasu stand in first position during the City of Lights Parade on Dec. 2.
Great Minds Think Alike: Collaborations Between Mililani Schools
Gianna Brown and Arie YamasakiFebruary 7, 2024
Senior Marcus Morifuji faces off against senior Ava Mayfield in a game of chess. The Tabletop Gaming Club
hosted its first chess tournament on Nov. 30, any student was welcome to participate.
Checkmate! Tabletop Gaming Club Hosts Chess Tournament
Marcus Morifuji, Sports Editor • February 6, 2024

Cutest teacher couple: Matsumuras share love story

By Lauren Barbour
[email protected]
(Photo courtesy of Genevieve Matsumura) After initially bonding over movies they like, the Matsumuras continue to enjoy watching Netflix and going to the theater together.

Science teacher Keith Matsumura Jr. and Social Studies teacher Genevieve Matsumura first encountered each other at a church function in 2006, a meeting that would spark a successful three-year, long distance relationship that would eventually bud into an engagement in 2010 and marriage a year later. After four years, the two are still very much in love.

“I feel like every day is my favorite memory with her. I feel like every morning I get to wake up and see her and at the end of the day I get to come home and just be able to spend time with her, I think every day is like my best memory,” said Keith Matsumura.

Getting to this point wasn’t necessarily easy. The first three years of their relationship were spent with 2,467 miles between them. “I didn’t think it was going to last because I was going to California (for college) in a few months because I was just home for winter break and he was so great because he wanted to try and continue the relationship even though it was far away,” said Genevieve Matsumura.

In a time where most social media had yet to become widely used, the two kept in contact through phone calls, texts and email. “For the first year, that was actually all we did, was email. I think she was really trying to focus on school and I was trying to focus on my schooling as well, so oftentimes we kind of just looked forward to computer emails back and forth,” recalled Keith Matsumura. “It was pretty tough, but I think we’re one of the few people in the world who actually it worked out for so I was pretty blessed for that.”

And despite the holidays and birthdays spent apart, they did find ways to spend the time together. Genevieve Matsumura said, “Actually, our first Valentine’s Day was through Skype. So he took his computer to a coffee shop and we turned on Skype and we both had hot cocoas, because that’s kind of like our favorite drink, and we both had a dinner that we had bought and we just ate and drank together over the internet.”

Since then, the couple has enjoyed many more memorable holidays. “There was a couple Valentine’s Days ago, I knew that her favorite meal is chicken parmesan so one Valentine’s Day, I surprised her and I actually cooked her a surprise chicken parmesan and wrapped it up in a picnic thing and took her to the beach and we ate the parmesan at the beach and watched the sunset and yeah, just kind of relaxed,” Keith Matsumura said.

Without the distance between them, the two enjoy spending as much time as they can together. Keith Matsumura said, “We’ll go to the mall and just hang out or just go for drives and stuff. We really enjoy those things.”

Keith and Genevieve Matsumura also enjoy traveling together and have vacationed in places like New York City, Japan and California. Disneyland is actually the site of one of Genevieve Matsumura’s favorite memories of their courtship. “It was at the end of the night and Disneyland does this huge fireworks show and we didn’t realize it at the time because we were weaving ourselves through the crowd, but at one point we kind of just looked down and we realized we were holding hands,” she said. “And that was the first time we ever held hands so it was kind of an exciting, big deal and there were fireworks going off and we were in our favorite place on earth, so it was really touching. And that’s kind of when we first felt, ‘Yeah, we’re going to continue this relationship, we’re going to try our best to work through it.’”

From there, their relationship continued all the way up to their engagement on the beach. “Basically, he’s a surfer and he told me that he wanted me to take pictures of him and I was actually kind of frustrated at this point because I had been home a year and we had discussed getting married and he had not asked me, we weren’t talking about it so I was really kind of bummed,” recalled Genevieve Matsumura. “So we finally get to the spot, we’re taking off all our gear and I turn around and he’s down on one knee and I’m just so surprised.”

The two got married in 2011 and, while their relationship hasn’t always been smooth sailing, they have grown from the conflicts. “We haven’t had the perfect relationship in that we fight and we disagree, but ultimately we do our best to work it out and I think that our relationship is benefitting because of that. It’s not perfect, but because we’re able to get through those different disagreements, we’re able to strengthen our relationship every single time,” explained Genevieve Matsumura.

Amidst reminiscing about their past, the two look forward to a happy future and many more memorable moments to come.

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