{"id":10583,"date":"2018-05-14T10:11:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-14T20:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/workable-level.flywheelsites.com\/?p=10583"},"modified":"2018-05-14T10:11:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T20:11:25","slug":"student-honors-father-who-passed-away-at-kccs-commencement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/14\/student-honors-father-who-passed-away-at-kccs-commencement\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Honors Father, Who Passed Away, at KCC’s Commencement"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Katlin Cilliers<\/a> | Staff Writer<\/h5>\n

Thousands of stories lie beneath graduation caps.<\/p>\n

However, a photo surrounded by a Biblical, loving note attached to a graduate cap certainly caught the eyes of passersby last Friday.\u00a0Charvie\u00a0<\/strong>Duque \u2013 the cap’s owner \u2013 received her associate’s\u00a0<\/strong>degree in hospitality and tourism from KCC. Prior to the ceremony, Duque said that she flew back home to visit her father’s grave and let\u00a0him know that she was graduating and that she wished he was there to see her move the tassel to the left.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always encouraged me to do my best,” Duque said.\u00a0“Like, when I was doubting myself he always told [me] that I could do it, that I could be better. …\u00a0He\u2019s always been my motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duque\u2019s father,<\/strong> Cesar Duque,\u00a0passed away seven years ago, when she was about to turn 16 and beginning her sophomore year at Lahainaluna\u00a0High School in Maui. Prior to his passing, Duque\u2019s father had incentivized his daughter to pursue her passions; through the support of her family, Duque\u00a0<\/strong>engaged in her high school activities, such as clubs, school sports and student government. Duque recalled one special occasion, during her freshman year at high school, when her father made so much noise supporting her during a tennis match that people wondered whose dad that was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a very close [tennis] match,” Duque said. “And he just pushed us there, he had a ‘I am the boss’ hat, and everyone was like \u2018Who is this dad?\u2019 “, because he kept cheering her loudly with words of encouragement.\u00a0The support and incentive drove Duque to win the match.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a very big moment,” Duque said.<\/p>\n

Her father\u2019s death \u2013 following complications caused by a heart surgery \u2013 took Duque by surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe literally was my best friend, my hero, my anchor,\u201d Duque said. \u201cEverything that a dad is.”\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hospitality\u00a0major shared that Cesar Duque suffered from a rare genetic disease called Bart\u2019s Syndrome, which\u00a0 causes\u00a0severe anemia, an\u00a0enlarged\u00a0liver and spleen and\u00a0heart defects. The degenerative disease developed into weight and heart problems, and Cesar\u00a0<\/strong>Duque eventually had to undergo a heart surgery to replace a leaky valve\u00a0in 2011. There was 50 percent\u00a0chance of survival and recovery.\u00a0The surgery was successful, but two days later something went wrong, causing Duque’s father to pass away on July 24, 2011.<\/p>\n

Cesar Duque’s daughter was among one of the more than\u00a0<\/b>500 students who were awarded their\u00a0associate’s\u00a0degrees and certificates of competence from Kapi\u2018olani Community College last May 11. The ceremony was attended by families and friends as well as faculty, and state representatives, including Gov.\u00a0<\/b>David Ige, Hawai\u02bbi Sen. Stanley Chang, and state Rep. Bertrand Kobayashi and Calvin Say.<\/p>\n

\"\"The cap’s white background made for a stark contrast to the bright blue gowns that circled around Hawai\u2018i’s Convention Center for this 2018’s commencement ceremony.\u00a0Surrounded by a heart\u00a0and framed by a verse from Philippians, the cap read:\u00a0<\/strong>“I thank God every time I remember you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Katlin Cilliers | Staff Writer Thousands of stories lie beneath graduation caps. However, a photo surrounded by a Biblical, loving note attached to a graduate cap certainly caught the eyes of passersby last Friday.\u00a0Charvie\u00a0Duque \u2013 the cap’s owner \u2013 received her associate’s\u00a0degree in hospitality and tourism from KCC. Prior to the ceremony, Duque said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campusfeatures","category-features","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}