With more than 3,000 students, Punahou is the largest private school in the country, and it sits on a lush, sprawling campus in Honolulu.  The school is elite and wealthy. 

Grandpa was the driving force behind Barry being accepted at Punahou and he took Barry to Punahou for the entrance exams in 1971 and he also accompanied Barry to Punahou on his first day of classes in 1972.

Barry made friends quickly and told his classmates that his father was an African prince, the leader of a proud and successful people.

Obama’s classmate and friend, Keith “Ray” Kakugawa, said, “Barry’s biggest struggles then were missing his parents.  His biggest struggles were his feelings of abandonment.

While at Punahou School, Obama turns into a disenchanted teenage rebel, experimenting with cocaine and marijuana.  Obama admits in “Dreams” that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally.

In his book, Obama recalls that he had “been headed” to the status of “junkie” or “pothead”, which he describes as “the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man”.  He recalls smoking “reefer” in the backs of his friends’ vans, dorm rooms and “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school.”

Obama, told a group of students in New Hampshire that his drug use had caused him to “waste a lot of time” during his high school years.

Bryon Leong, a former classmate, remembers, “He was known as a partier, as a guy looking for a good time, but not much more,” Mr Leong said.  “There was pot in Hawaii in the 1970s, but it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It wasn’t like guys were smoking dope on campus and coming to school high,” said Eric Kusunoki, 57, Obama’s teacher from age 15 to 18.  “If they did, it would have been pretty obvious.  If he did dabble with drugs or alcohol, I didn’t see it.”

Other schoolmates also remember his time at school rather differently.  He was a spoiled high-achiever, they recall.

One of his former classmates, Alan Lum, said: “Hawaii is such a melting pot that it didn’t occur to me when we were growing up that he might have problems about being one of the few African-Americans at the school. Us kids didn’t see color. He was easy-going and well-liked.”

At school, Obama was surrounded by the island’s richest and most accomplished students.  America Online founder Steve Case, actress Kelly Preston and former Dallas Cowboys lineman Mark Tuinei, who died in 1999, attended the school around that time.  Pro golf sensation Michelle Wie, 17, is a student there now (2006). 

While a student in the late 1970s, Barack Obama carved his name in the pavement outside the cafeteria of Punahou School. 

And, did you know Punahou School, has a statue of their most PRIZED student bronzed in a court yard on the school campus?  And who is this “pillar of academic and character success”?  Why, it’s Ho Chi Minh
front row: Greg Ramos, manager; Chris McLachlin, head coach; Dan Moore, manager.

Second row: Matt Hiu, Alan Lum, Tom Topolinski, Darin Mauerer, Dan Hale, John Kamana.

Third row: Darryl Gabriel, Boy Eldredge, Greg Orme, Larry Tavares, Jason Oshima.

More, much more and pics in the article here: