DID YOU KNOW?
Tacoma’s story spans more than two centuries from the time Captain George Vancouver anchored off Tacoma’s north shore in 1792.
In 1870, Tacoma’s natural deep-water port became an attraction that the Northern Pacific Railroad couldn’t pass up, when it made Tacoma a stop on its transcontinental line.
Old Tacoma and New Tacoma merged in 1884 and incorporated as Tacoma. By 1890, the population reached 36,000 people.
Tacoma is home to the Port of Tacoma, the seventh-largest container port in the United States, and it is within 20 miles of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and 36 miles of the city of Seattle.
Miles Struxness,
Upper School Art, Visual Arts Dept Chair, 12th Grade Advisor
Miles Struxness teaches art. “When I first came to CWA, the pottery was in a double-wide trailer with a pretty big rat problem,” recalls Struxness. “Now I work in the nicest studio I have ever had during my career which has included working at the University of Puget Sound, Pacific Lutheran and Tacoma Community College’s extension campus in Gig Harbor. CWA has come a long way in my thirty years.”
Struxness graduated from the University of Redlands in California and earned his masters degree in fine arts at the University of Puget Sound. He joined the faculty of Charles Wright in 1978. He coached baseball for 23 years, including 1980 when CWA won the state championship. He also advised the school’s yearbook and led the senior retreat for many years. He now serves as the chair of the visual art department.
“I enjoy working with clay and am currently in the process of building a studio at my house in Gig Harbor,” says Struxness. “I am interested in atmospheric types of firing using wood and soda to help give the pots their surface decoration.”
Struxness also enjoys going to the Washington and Oregon coast with his wife, Pamela, and their dogs Molly and Tucker. The couple lives in a house they built in 1981 on an acre his in-laws gave them. He enjoys most sports, but especially baseball and college football. He is a big University of Southern California fan.
Struxness graduated from the University of Redlands in California and earned his masters degree in fine arts at the University of Puget Sound. He joined the faculty of Charles Wright in 1978. He coached baseball for 23 years, including 1980 when CWA won the state championship. He also advised the school’s yearbook and led the senior retreat for many years. He now serves as the chair of the visual art department.
“I enjoy working with clay and am currently in the process of building a studio at my house in Gig Harbor,” says Struxness. “I am interested in atmospheric types of firing using wood and soda to help give the pots their surface decoration.”
Struxness also enjoys going to the Washington and Oregon coast with his wife, Pamela, and their dogs Molly and Tucker. The couple lives in a house they built in 1981 on an acre his in-laws gave them. He enjoys most sports, but especially baseball and college football. He is a big University of Southern California fan.
