MHS grad meets with First Lady

August 4, 2021

by Larry Chowning –

First Lady Jill Biden, left, visits Waipahu High School in Hawaii and listens as 2006 Middlesex High School alumna Jill Hester Barrette describe the work of her COVID-19 vaccination team. (Contributed)

Jill Hester Barrette, a 2006 Middlesex High School graduate and a Rappahannock Community College nursing school graduate, was interviewed in July by Dr. Jill Biden, the First Lady of the United States.

Barrette is a member of the COVID-19 vaccination team with Hawaii Pacific Health (HPH) and is married to a U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer. The family was recently transferred from Florida to Hawaii where she got the job with HPH.

“Since the beginning of emergency use authorization for the vaccinations, HPH set up a mass vaccination clinic in Honolulu in a large cruise terminal that is currently not functioning due to the pandemic to help disperse vaccinations to the general public,” she said.

“We started in January and have been administering as many as 2,100 vaccinations per day at times. From that operation came an outreach program where HPH decided to set up a mobile vaccination clinic using a bus to go to high schools and middle schools to help get vaccines closer to the patients in outlying areas as well as to facilitate vaccination of students when their age groups are approved.

“Waipahu High School was one of our scheduled stops and the First Lady visited the school with Governor David Ige and his wife, Dawn Amano-Ige,” she said.

“The First Lady was particularly interested in this location because we use a team of nurses and medical assistants to administer vaccines,” she said. “Many of our medical assistants came directly from a program that began at Waipahu High…