Overall Winner of the 2025 Maunakea Coin Contest Announced
The overall winner of the 2025 Maunakea Coin Contest was announced at AstroDay on May 3. Ros Haleyah Mari Asuncion Ganot, an 11th grader at Pāhoa High and Intermediate School, took home first place with her incredible design.
The Maunakea Coin Contest was launched by the Maunakea Astronomy Outreach Committee in 2011 as an annual event. The contest aims to encourage students, grades K to 12, from the Big Island to explore different aspects of design by creating a coin that represents the majestic mountain, Maunakea. The winning design is available as a bronze coin at the First Light Bookstore at the Visitor Information Station on Maunakea, while aluminum versions are available at Maunakea Astronomy Outreach Committee (MKAOC) events throughout the year.
Entries are divided into grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. Category judges choose a first, second, and third place winner for each division, and a Grand Judge selects three designs for overall first, second, and third place. Each winner receives prizes from KTA Super Stores, ʻImiloa Astronomy Center, Galaxy Garden/Paleaku Gardens Peace Sanctuary, East Hawai‘i Cultural Center, the Onizuka Space Science Program, Maunakea Visitor Information Station, and the Maunakea Observatories. This year, Ros won the grand prize with a design that showcases aspects of Hawaiian culture from the land to the sky.
The mountain with a couple of observatories at the center of the design acts as a focal point and is covered in plants native to Maunakea, including ʻōhiʻa lehua. ʻŌhiʻa lehua is one of Hawaiʻi’s most important native trees. It's the first to spring up after recent lava flows; its wood, leaves, and flowers have long been used for traditional Hawaiian tools, weapons, medicine, and ceremonies; it’s prominent in native Hawaiian mythology and thought of as sacred to the goddess of the volcano, Pele. Maunakea is flanked on either side by portraits of Pele and her youngest sister, Hiʻiaka. In Hawaiian myth, the sisters represent balance. After Pele erupts and forms new land, Hiʻiaka heals the land with new vegetation. Looking to the sky, we see a bird filled with stars hovering over Maunakea. The inscription at the bottom of the coin, an ʻōlelo noeʻau, reads “ʻO nā hōkū no na kiu o ka lani,” which translates to “The stars are the spies of the heaven.”
In addition to the collector’s coins available at the First Light Bookstore and MKAOC events, her design was made into t-shirts and collector coins for this year’s AstroDay. During AstroDay, Ros was officially announced as the overall winner of the 2025 Maunakea Coin Contest and given a plaque and medal to commemorate the moment.
“Seeing the design on people’s t-shirts and on the coin is very heartwarming. I’m so happy that people appreciate my art and that everybody has an appreciation for the land, the sky, astronomy, Maunakea, so I was very proud of seeing everything on the merchandise.”
Ros was inspired to enter by her sister Luche, who was named the overall winner of the 2022 Maunakea Coin Contest. This is Ros’s fourth year entering, and her well-deserved win is the result of lots of hard work and perseverance. “You should always join these opportunities,” said Ros. “There are so many opportunities out there, so you might as well take the chance and try, and even if you don’t win, you can always try again next year, like I did.”
Ros’s parting advice to others who are passionate about art and interested in entering the contest is to do your research, think creatively, remember that your design will take multiple days, and speak about what’s close to your heart.
