_{Students from Del Norte High hosted their peers from Takata High School this week. A student delegation of nine visited from Rikuzentakata, Japan to further the sister school relationship between the two communities. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews}

The relationship between Del Norte and Takata high schools entered a new chapter Monday when a delegation of students from Rikuzentakata touched down in Crescent City for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the plane circled the runway for more than an hour due to fog, nine students and two teachers stepped off the tarmac to an enthusiastic welcome from their host families, the Del Norte High School Japan Club and Kamome Foundation members.

Before they accompanied their host families to pick up their luggage, each student received a gift from their American counterparts, former Japan Club members who are now in college.

“We are so proud that you are here and we are grateful to our community and our connection and our friendship,” DNHS English teacher Carol Zocchi told the delegates. “Thank you for coming for another year so we can join in some fun and some big trees and some good food and laughter.”

In addition to the students and their teachers, the delegation to Crescent City included Takumi Kuroiwa, vice consul for Japan’s Consulate General Office in San Francisco, and Kiyoshi Murakami, senior foreign affairs advisor for Rikuzentakata.

Del Norte’s friendship with the seaside community in Japan’s Iwate Prefecture began in April 2013 when a 20-foot long fishing vessel named Kamome washed ashore south of Crescent City.

After saving the boat from being salvaged, Bill Steven, then a commander with the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office, worked with the Redwood Coast Tsunami Working Group to trace the vessel back to Takata High. 

According to an article from Cal Poly Humboldt, Takata High had used the boat to teach students how to dive and to do work in the harbor.

When he learned that Rikuzentakata wanted the boat back despite still coping with the devastation the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami caused two years prior, Steven set about trying to make that happen.

That gesture, which included Steven’s son John and five other teenagers, led to the sister school relationship Del Norte and Takata High entered into in 2017 and, ultimately, the 2018 Sister City pact between Del Norte, Crescent City and Rikuzentakata.

The friendship has put both communities on a world stage during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and has prompted the creation of the Kamome Festival, which is held in April. The Sister City relationship has also led to business ventures on both sides of the Pacific.

SeaQuake created Kamome Ale and Rumiano Cheese Company created Kamome Dry Jack with salt from Hiroto Bay.

On Wednesday, Murakami said he brought roughly 20 pounds of salt with him for Rumiano Cheese. But this visit’s focus is mainly on the relationship between the two schools, he said.

“We have a strong commitment to make it happen for those students,” he said, adding that the last time a student delegation visited Crescent City from Japan was in 2019. “I really want to make a sustainable relationship between the two schools and also the communities as well.”

It has been more than a decade since the exchanges between the two schools began, retired DNHS Principal Coleen Parker said. Since then, the relationship has become more than a trip here and a trip there.

“It’s become an opportunity for them to have some leadership and develop some knowledge about other places around the world,” Parker said.

Under Zocchi, Del Norte High’s Japan Club has grown to about 45 students. They meet regularly and Zocchi is teaching her students Japanese, Parker said.

Their counterparts at Takata High are also learning English, Parker said.

“Our kids actually taught English over there when they were there in June,” she said. “They set up a day in the life of an American city. They had stations set up and they had to go around and speak in English about going to the bank and going to the grocery store. The kids were manning those different stations and having conversations so they could get a glimpse of what it was like for our students on a regular basis in the United States.”

For Riko, a Takata High School senior, the visit to Crescent City this week was an opportunity to see where her friend, Charley Tygart, was from. Though she’s going to graduate in March, Riko said she wants to be more involved in the Sister City relationship between Rikuzentakata and Crescent City and Del Norte County.

“[This is] something she wants to bring back for the next generation,” said Aki Downing, who translated for Riko on Wednesday.

Riko, Charley and their peers spent Wednesday morning preparing for a game they plan to unveil to the rest of Del Norte High on Thursday.

“It’s called Pin-a-Friend,” Charley said. “You have a little clothespin with your name on it. You only get one and you have to pin it on somewhere — on someone’s clothing without them noticing. Then at the end of the day when the game’s over, whatever pins you have on you — it can be more than one — you look at the names and you have to figure out who it is and go make a new friend by giving it back to them.”

Charley, Del Norte High’s senior class president, joined the Japan Club as a freshman. Masks and social distancing were still mandatory and the exchanges between the two schools had been put on hold.

The Japan Club had lost a few members as a result, Charley said. But those that stayed were there for the immersion and maintained their connection with Takata High via Zoom, Instagram and through letter writing.

“And then last year, I was president of the Japan Club, and we sent them a box of candies and letters and gifts, and we actually got to send some students over [to Rikuzentakata] right after graduation last year,” she said, adding that she had stayed with Riko’s family in Japan last year. “This year we are finally having them come to our school.”

Murakami said he and others with Rikuzentakata and the Kamome Foundation are working on implementing cross cultural exchanges. This will involve smaller student delegates from both schools visiting each other on an annual basis, he said.

“We want to make a sustainable relationship between the two schools and also the two communities as well,” Murakami said. “They need to know what it’s like here in Crescent City so they know how good the people are here. That’s one of the main points.”