Automata are simple mechanical toys have been built since the time of the ancient Greeks. Working with the big idea of play, the sculpture class was asked to design an automaton for a child between the ages of five and eight. After each student made their own small-scale model (maquette), the class chose two to designs to build to a larger scale.

Katie Welch, Claire Drouillard, Naomi Griggs, Young-eon Kim and Genie Park took a cardboard marquette and created an elaborate Halloween-inspired toy. With a turn of the handle, the two monster puppets on top spin.

Jesse Kolp, Nick Lai, Josh Clemons and Janay Davis worked together to transform this small marquette made from pipe-cleaners and cardboard into a large-scale multi-media toy, sure to delight any child. Turn the crank on the back and the swing carries the doll back and forth.

Welch and Kolp, a senior and sophomore respectively, served as the leaders of the two design teams.

Stop by the Ted Sanford Art Gallery during finals week to see all the marquettes.

1.) CWA Beginning School students put on their annual production of the Native American folktale The Rainbow Crow.  The littlest Tarriers took on roles that ranged from forest animals to the Great Sky Spirit.  Check out the trailer for the movie!

2.) Third grade students planted trees in cooperation with the Nisqually tribe as part of their study of the Nisqually Watershed.  The students take a field trip once a month exploring a different part of the Nisqually River from Mt. Rainier down to the Puget Sound.

3.) Second graders learned about the inner workings of a computer on a technology field trip to The Apple Store.  Students also received some instructions on how to use diagnostic tools to assess the “health” of a computer.

4.) Trailer runners!  Lower School students at the end of the weekly “trail run” at the start of Thursday morning recess.  Fun and fitness are always the result as students enjoy the trekking the trail through the woods behind school with CWA faculty.

5.) Zoo fun: First grade students listen to instructions on a recent field trip to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.  The students paid particular attention to animals from the desert as they prepared to write desert stories.

Last week, Junior Alec Kurtz appeared on TV Tacoma’s CityLine talk show to talk about the contributions of the Upper School’s Advanced Ceramics Empty Bowls Club. Click here to watch a video of the show and skip ahead to 45:50 for the Empty Bowls segment.

Empty Bowls is an annual fundraiser for the Emergency Food Network that will be hosted on the Charles Wright campus on Saturday, November 19, from 1-4pm. Kurtz and nine other students have been throwing pots all year to donate to the cause. They will have 100 pots for sale in the Middle School Commons.

Kurtz and his classmates are also contributing pieces to a silent auction on Friday evening at the EFN’s juried art show, Vessels, located in CWA’s Language and Performings Arts Building. This is the only three-dimensional juried art show in the area.

Both events are open to the public and proceeds from both events will benefit the thousands of Pierce County residents that visit the network of food banks in our area each week.

For more information about Empty Bowls or the Juried art show, contact Aileen Bacon at (253) 620-8433 or visit efoodnet.org.

Anthony Wohns of Tacoma, Nicole Ebalo of Olympia and Sarah Yamamoto of Lakewood were all honored as National Merit Semifinalists. This year CWA’s Commended Scholars are Timothy Chang of Gig Harbor, Paige Henderson of Port Orchard, Sydney Hughes of Olympia, Kajsa Mayo of Gig Harbor, Justice Nichols of Fircrest, Decker Nielsen of University Place, Sarah Sadlier of Gig Harbor, Peter Schilling of Tacoma, Ashley Thomas of Auburn, Jay Um of Gig Harbor, and Joshua Zhu of Tacoma.

These fourteen students have also excelled in many other academic and co-curricular pursuits.  The group includes:

•    Ten student athletes (Wohns, Chang, Henderson, Hughes, Mayo, Nichols, Nielsen, Sadlier, Schilling and Um);
•    Nine musicians, actors and actresses (Wohns, Yamamoto, Chang, Henderson, Nielsen, Sadlier, Schilling, Thomas and Um);
•    Nine Knowledge Bowl team members (Wohs, Ebalo, Yamamoto, Chang, Mayo, Nichols, Sadlier, Schilling and Zhu);
•    Seven volunteers who have far exceeded the school’s community service expectation (Wohns, Ebalo, Chang, Nielsen, Sadlier, Schilling and Zhu);
•    Six study-body or club leaders (Ebalo, Yamamoto, Chang, Henderson, Nielsen, and Sadlier);
•    Five Model UN team members (Wohns, Ebalo, Sadlier, Thomas and Zhu);
•    Three National History Day contestants (Chang, Schilling and Sadlier);
•    Two visual artistis (Hughes and Zhu); and
•    Two lit mag staffers (Hughes and Thomas).

1) CWA Kindergarteners ready for the Annual Apple Squeeze!

2) 78 CWA Lower School students ran at the second cross country meet of the year.

3) Hands-on learning: 5th grade students conduct an archaeological dig on campus.

4) First place with second place nowhere in sight!

5) CWA Lower School students hone their chess skills every Wednesday at Chess Club.

Since it’s the first Five Photo Friday of the school year, we’re throwing in a bonus. Lower School artists imaged “whirled peace” on Pinwheels for Peace Day, an international event. The project was part of Ms. Candy’s art class.

Williams applied to 13 schools she thought represented the full continuum. Then, to her tremendous surprise, she was accepted by 12 of those 13 schools. The only trouble with that bit of good fortune was that the full weight of choosing a college then fell on her shoulders and her shoulders alone. She wound up at Dartmouth, the school she originally considered a reach, but with so many options on the table it was not an easy decision.

Williams attended CWA from kindergarten and for all 13 years she was an athlete, musician and leader among her peers. She was one of only two girls in her graduating class who completed 12 seasons of competitive high school athletics. She played volleyball and basketball and sprinted for the track team all through Middle and Upper School, serving as a team captain for all three sports both her junior and senior years.

She won two state championship titles in the 4×100 meter relay (2009 and 2010) and had three second-place finishes at state in the 4×200 (2008, 2009 and 2010). She was a member of the three most successful Tarrier volleyball teams in school history. She played club volleyball for four years outside of school and coached a team of fellow CWA athletes after finishing her senior season. Williams was named the school’s most outstanding female athlete at the end of her senior year and nominated for The News Tribune’s female athlete of the year award.

Athletics were not the only activities keeping her busy. She sang in school choirs all through Upper School and competed her senior year at the state solo and ensemble competition with a quartet. Williams was also a member of the Green Key club and was very involved in community service. She was elected by her peers to be the ASB community service head her senior year. She volunteered as a tutor with Stand Up for Kids, an outreach program for homeless and at-risk youth. She also worked with the school’s Chapel Home, Boys and Girls Clubs, and global outreach programs. She served as the President of the Tacoma chapter of Jack and Jill America, Inc, a youth leadership development organization. Her senior year, Williams became an actress and Brendan Rome cast her in the role of Salome in his one act by the same name.

Academically, Williams also excelled in many areas, especially English, history, Spanish and science. She loved working on her junior research project and wrote an essay about her experience with that English paper for Ties last summer. She credits Creighton King (English), Neil Biermann (science), Howard Wouters (math) and Coaches Rob Scotlan and Mindy McGrath as some of her greatest influences at CWA.

Williams particularly loved her forensics class. “Since the third grade, I have wanted to spend my life investigating the dead to bring answers to the living,” she says. “My passion only deepened when I began taking Mr. Biermann’s forensics science class my senior year. I got hands-on experience with mini investigations so I know this is what I want to spend my life doing. I love not knowing the answers because I love discovering. I love figuring things out for myself and this is still what attracts me to the role of a coroner or medical examiner today. Many might ask whose aspiration it would be to sit with dead people all day… but someone has to do it and it might as well be someone who is genuinely curious and passionate about the matter.”

Perhaps it part because she has so many strengths and interests, the college selection process was hard for Williams. “I had a very long list of colleges, right up until I made my final choice,” she says. “I started with a summer tour of West Coast schools with my parents the summer before my junior year, then took a similar tour of East Coast schools before my senior year. In total I saw almost 30 schools. I looked at every type of college and university because I thought it would at least help me decide what sort of school I did not want to attend.

“I decided that I would probably prefer a smaller school and that I liked the idea of attending school on the East Coast, especially since I think I will probably move back to the West Coast to begin my career. Beyond that, touring schools did not particularly help me narrow down my list. I decide to apply to 13 schools – more than most students do – and just see what happened. I assumed the schools’ decisions would narrow the list considerably. I applied regular-decision to mostly liberal arts schools on the East Coast but I also applied to a few in California and one in Washington.

“Dartmouth was the big reach on my list. It was secretly my number one, but I only told a few people that. I was intimidated by its selectivity – less than 10 percent of applicants get in – so although I knew I wanted to run in college, I didn’t even bother to contact the Dartmouth coach. It seemed like a waste of time because I really didn’t think I was going to get in.”

What Williams most liked about Dartmouth was not the prestige of its Ivy League status, but the feeling she got on campus. “I visited in the summer and it was the only campus that felt alive. There were lots of students there and everyone was studying and laughing and having fun. Everyone was happy. It seemed like they were a bunch of Rachaels.”

The decision letter began arriving in February and one after another brought good news. The first eleven decisions she received were all acceptances. Because she wanted to run for the track team, she found herself leaning toward Colgate and Davidson, confident that she could make either Division I team. She had several conversations with their coaches.

The twelfth decision Williams received was a denial and she consoled herself that getting into eleven of thirteen schools was really pretty good. The Dartmouth decision was schedule for the very same day, so she figured she would check online before telling her parents. To her tremendous surprise, she found she had been accepted. “I ran into the other room and told my dad, then went right upstairs to update my Facebook status and call my best friend,” she recalls. “I decided to surprise my mom when she came home but yeah, I told everyone on Facebook first.”

Once the excitement wore off, Williams faced a difficult decision. She was still feeling a little intimidated by Dartmouth’s academic reputation and she was not sure she could run there. More research was necessary. She emailed the coach who responded: “Your times look like the people I would have talked to (while recruiting). I’ll put you on the summer workout list.”

With the possibility of running on the table, she booked a flight to visit the school a second time. This trip she made solo. “After the last performance of One Acts, I changed my clothes at school and went straight to the airport. I had to be back at CWA on Tuesday so it was a quick trip two-night trip. I mainly listened to what people had to say. I sat in on a Spanish class and I thought the professor was really funny. Apparently a rat had disturbed his last class by running through the classroom and he kept making jokes about the rat.”

Williams spent both nights in the dorms. The first night she stayed with Tori Portnow, a 2010 graduate of CWA. “We talked about the transition and how prepared she felt,” says Williams. “Her answers really pointed me in the right direction. I was concerned about the weather – I thought I was going to freeze to death and I still do, actually – and about the academic rigor. Because we come from the same high school, her comparisons of the programs were really helpful and I gained a lot of confidence from our conversations.”

As a pre-med student, Williams knows her chosen course of study will be challenging. She will likely major in biochemistry or neurology. “Dartmouth has a really strong premed program and the number one student-faculty research program, so if I want to do research as an undergrad, this will definitely be the school to do that,” she says.

Williams also made time to visit with members of the track team. She thought long and hard about what made her a successful student athlete in high school. “I think what makes me successful in the classroom is knowing that I have so much to do that I have to balance and manage my time well. The more free time I have, the less I manage my time well. Athletics provides structure and I make more efficient time of the work time I create for myself. Running in college will help me be a better student and it will provide an emotional release that keeps me well rounded.

“By the end of the visit, I was sure I wanted to attend Dartmouth. For such a serious academic school, Dartmouth students know how to have fun. It feels kind of like Charles Wright, really. There isn’t a person there who doesn’t have pride in the school and I think that’s really important.”

When she arrived home in Tacoma, Williams got online to make decision official and after notifying the admissions office she sent an email to the track coach. Because track is a winter and spring sport, she does not need to report to campus early. She does need to stay healthy and after rehabbing an injury for several months, she’s making that a top priority. Once the big decision was behind her, Williams relaxed and enjoyed the end of her senior year. Her peers selected her as one of three student graduation speakers, an honor she greatly appreciated. “I’m just really going to miss this place and everyone who helped shape me into the person I am today,” she says.

Check out this YouTube video of Wadleigh conducting the choirs from Holy Names Academy (where he worked for the past 11 years) and Bishop Blanchett High School. His choir was invited to sing with Spike and the Impalers a Seattle cover band.

Wadleigh and his family live in Tacoma but his long commute to Seattle was not the only reason he was interested in the position at CWA. “The moment I stepped on to the Charles Wright campus, I saw a palpable spirit of pride and vigor in the faces of the students, in the beautiful grounds, and in the faculty and staff who seemed thrilled to be at work,” says Wadleigh. “I decided very quickly that I wanted to be part of that feeling.”

Wadleigh grew up in Eastern Washington in a theater family. He spent his summers performing in Pullman with his mother and sister, under the direction of his father. “I grew up in a pretty small town, so being the son of a couple of artists was both a blessing and a curse at times. Advertising for my mother’s dance studio in a bedazzled top hat with my tutu-clad sister amid my friends doing the same duty for their fathers’ welding shops was… character building…”

Wadleigh graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in choral music. “I went to school intending to be a jazz guitarist, but somewhere along the way got drawn into the choral department. The feeling of performing a piece with 60 impassioned voices is something that everyone should experience. It brought me back to my musical theater days with my family and my many turns as gawking townsperson No. 11, singing our hearts out for that final number. It is visceral electric, and its something that you can’t recreate with an instrument. My goal as a choral educator is to shepherd my students toward that sense of elation and emotional abandon that occurs on stage with a choir of like-minded musicians all striving for the same feeling. It’s magic!”

Wadleigh previously served as the music director for a private girls school in Seattle for 11 years. It was there that he realized his love of rock and roll did have a place in a high school music curriculum. “I have always kept one foot in the rock music world, and was thrilled to realize that there was a need for a bridge that rock music could fill between academic music in the classroom and the music that students were actually living with outside of school. I created a course at my previous school called Modern Music Ensemble that was essentially a rock band that met five days per week. When students realized they could take this class for credit, they were over the moon. What I found was that writing and performing the music that they felt close to was as rigorous and valuable as any course work in Baroque or Classical music. I try to keep each side of that coin alive in all my musical adventures with students.”

The Rev. Charles Baker Bradshaw Award
(1956 – 1958)
Presented to the senior who best demonstrates consideration for others.
MEKENZIE DOLLY HAYFORD

Edgar L. Sanford Award
(1958 – 1969)
Presented to the senior who best exemplifies the qualities of a Charles Wright student
SEAN LAWRENCE FULLER
NATALIE MERRILL WEYERHAEUSER

E. Bruce Haertl Award
(1969 – 1977)
Presented to senior who displays great improvement.
SALVATORE MICHAEL CINDRICH

Philip V. Havens Award
(1977 – 1986)
Presented to the senior who exhibits unsurpassed enthusiastic support of school activities.
JESSICA SACHIKO HIROTA

Robert W. Minnerly Award
(1986 – 1996)
Presented to the senior who demonstrates good citizenship through respectfulness, integrity, and fairness.
JULIA RACHEL DONNER

The following awards were presented to Upper School students at the annual awards assembly.

BROWN UNIVERSITY BOOK AWARD:
Presented to the junior who best combines a high degree of ability in English, both written and spoken, with those outstanding personal qualities, which, in the words of the Brown Charter, “give promise that the student becomes one of the succession of men and women duly qualified to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation.”
Anthony Wohns

BEST WRITING, RESEARCH, & SCHOLARSHIP AWARD:  Presented to the junior who best combines writing, research and scholarship.
Sarah Yamamoto

B.J. SMITH AWARD:  Presented to the freshman displaying the most fresh and distinctive writing voice.
Joey Song

JEAN HEATH MALDEN SOPHOMORE WRITING AWARD:  Presented to the sophomore English student whose work in essay writing deserves special commendation for clarity of expression
and power of argument.
Alec Willis

SENIOR ENGLISH AWARD:  Presented to the senior who has throughout the past academic year: demonstrated a keen interest in literature, consistently written essays noteworthy for effective style, clear argument and original ideas, and repeatedly made valuable contributions
to class discussions.
Sarika Halarnakar

YEARBOOK AWARD:
Natalie Weyerhaeuser

DOROTHY CREPIN MATH AWARD: Presented to the senior who has displayed an outstanding record of math achievement and who, in class and out, displays the qualities of inquisitiveness, imagination and initiative in relation to new ideas.  The student should be one who accepts mathematics as a challenge.
Sarika Halarnakar

LEIGH VANETTEN SCIENCE AWARD:  Presented to the senior who, in the opinion of the science department faculty, has demonstrated a continued interest and enjoyment in the study of the scientific disciplines and who, by further study, may use his/her scientific education in his/her professional career.
Kate Pan

ROSEMOND VANETTEN CHEMISTRY AWARD:  Presented to an underclassman who best exemplifies Leigh VanEtten’s enthusiastic commitment to the study of chemistry, this award was created in recognition of his 29 years of teaching and leadership, both in and out of the classroom, by his former students.
Ivy Wakaba

ROBERT J. CREPIN PHYSICS AWARD:  Presented to an outstanding physics student.
Nathan Fisher

RENSSELAER MEDAL:  Presented to a junior who is an outstanding student in science and mathematics and demonstrates potential for success in a science or technologically oriented profession.
Anthony Wohns

RICHARD NEUNHERZ HISTORY AWARD: Presented to a senior who demonstrates the academic rigor, intellectual curiosity and depth of character necessary for achieving excellence in the field of history.
Libby McAvoy

FOREIGN LANGUAGE AWARD: Presented to the senior who has distinguished him or herself by achieving a high standard of excellence in language studies—French, Japanese or Spanish.
Julia Donner
Kate Pan
Audrey Sung

BOOSTER CLUB ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS: Presented to senior athletes who have earned at least eight varsity letters during their time at CWA.
Lucas Agnew
Patrick Dale
Marcquel Hawkins
Nylson Ho
Michael Kane
Jaqueline Kirschner
Colin MacLeod
Stanley Peterson
Rachael Williams

CHUCK WIGHT ATHLETIC AWARDS:  Presented to the senior boy and girl who have provided the most inspiration to others through their love and enthusiastic participation in athletics and/or their sportsmanship.
Jessica Hirota
Co-recipients: Patrick Dale and Marcquel Hawkins

MOST OUTSTANDING ATHLETE AWARDS:  Presented to the boy and girl who have most excelled and distinguished themselves in their chosen athletic endeavors.
Colin MacLeod
Rachael Williams

PERFORMING ARTS AWARDS: Presented to the senior who has distinguished him or herself in the performing arts.
Abigail Lindsey Holmes

VINCENT PETERSEN MUSIC AWARDS:  Presented to the senior musicians who have most contributed to the school’s musical program who show a great deal of potential for future growth.
Instrumental: Josh Naon
Vocal: Aron Roberts

FINE ARTS AWARD:  Presented to the senior who distinguishes him or herself by achieving a high standard of excellence in the studio arts.
Munyo Frey-Edwards

PRESIDENT’S STUDENT SERVICE AWARDS: Presented to students who have recorded at least 100 hours of community service in their senior year.
Janay Davis (Bronze)
Nicole Fannin (Bronze)
Munyo Frey-Edwards (Silver)
Edward Kim (Bronze)
Jean Kim (Gold)
Bryan Gula (Gold)
Parker Reynolds (Silver)
Sophia Shin (Silver)
Kim Skokin (Bronze)
Sarah Yamamoto (Bronze)
Emily Harper (Silver)
Rachael Williams (Silver)
David Park (Bronze)

COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD:   Presented to the senior who demonstrates outstanding effort and enthusiasm in performing community service.
Rachael Williams

PRESIDENTIAL OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:
Rebecca Byrne
Sam Cindrich
Lauren Dudley
Sophie Flies
Kyli Gillard
Marcquel Hawkins
MeKenzie Hayford
Erin Hoolihan
Colin Kodama
Drew Pine
Natlaia Regalia-Affinito

WASHINGTON STATE HONORS AWARDS NOMINEES: Presented to seniors whose grade point averages and SAT scores place them in the top ten percent of Washington state’s high school graduating seniors.
Lucas Agnew
Kramer Canfield
Erik Cleland
Julia Donner
Sophie Doumit
Nicole Fannin
Sara Finkleman
Nathan Fisher
Nick Flood
Munyo Frey-Edwards
Stephanie Friend
Sean Fuller
Sarika Halarnakar
Emily Harper
Jessica Hirota
Sarah Saffari (Johnson)
Michael Kane
Miho Kim
Jean Kim
Charlie King
Jackie Kirschner
Nick Kohnen
Nam-Hoon Lee
Colin MacLeod
Libby McAvoy
Josh Naon
Jake Patten
Parker Reynolds
Brendan Rome
Alex Smith
Michael Song
Audrey Sung
Caroline Thompson
Natalie Weyerhaeuser
Rachael Williams

WASHINGTON STATE PRINCIPALS’ SCHOLARS PROGRAM:  Presented to seniors in recognition of outstanding academic achievement, leadership, service and merit.
Julia Donner
Sean Fuller
Kate Pan
Natalie Weyerhaeuser

UPPER SCHOOL BOOK AWARDS:  Presented to a student in each class who has attained high academic achievement while at the same time exerting a positive influence on the community.
9th Grade:  Hanna Um
10th Grade:  Alex Lutton
11th Grade:  Timothy Chang
12th Grade:  Alex Smith

SAM BROWN AWARD:  Presented to honor the person most responsible for the founding of this school, this award is given to a senior of honor, wit and distinction.
Sarah Saffari (Johnson)

SANDRA OVERMIRE MINNERLY AWARD:  Presented to a senior who selflessly and quietly supports others in making CWA a better community.
Emily Harper

“I always knew I wanted to go to school on the East Coast because I lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut before moving to Tacoma after sixth grade,” says Harper. None of the schools to which she applied were more than 170 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Within that region, she was also looking for a school where she could continue to pursue many of the passions she developed at CWA.

After trying soccer in the fall of her freshman year, Harper discovered she loved running and ran seven seasons for the CWA cross-country and track teams. She made several trips to state and placed in the top 14 both her junior and senior years, including a 7th place finish in the 3200m this year.

“I don’t want to feel like I’m only a runner, because I’m not,” she explains of her approach to college athletics. “I knew I didn’t want to run competitively at a school where I’d have to take specific classes for athletes instead of participating fully in academic programs, so I started looking for NCAA Division III programs where I can be a student and an athlete.”

Harper’s coach, Ryan Johnson, helped her identify schools in the Northeast that would be a good fit for her as an athlete. Last year the Colby women’s cross-country team won the Maine State title for the 10th time in program history. Colby also finished in seventh place in the NCAA New England Regional and sent two seniors to the NCAA meet. “The email I received from the coach when I was accepted made me feel like I was already a member of the team,” says Harper.

Journalism is another passion Harper developed at CWA. “People and cultures really interest me,” she says. “I could just listen to people’s stories all day long.” In addition to serving on the staff of The Academy Times for four years and serving as an editor for the publication her junior and senior years, Harper participated in National History Day as a freshman and sophomore. She collaborated with classmate Nicole Fannin to craft a video documentary for the contest about Carl Wilkens, the only American who stayed in Rwanda during the genocide there more than 15 years ago. The film was shown at the Tacoma Film Festival and is now used by Wilkens’ nonprofit organization to educate students all over the world about the events in Rwanda.

Although she is not planning a career in journalism, Harper wants to continue writing throughout college and finding a school with a good student newspaper was important to her. The Colby Echo fit the bill. Like the cross-country coach, the editors of the newspaper sent her a personalized letter when they learned she was interested in their program.

The seeds of global interest were sewn many years before Harper arrived at CWA. She is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland and lived there for several years when she was young. “I’ve been really privileged to travel abroad through programs at Charles Wright and to visit family members who live all over the world,” says Harper. She has hosted students from the UAE, Japan and Italy and made a Winterim trip to Japan during her sophomore year. During her summers, Harper has traveled to Ireland for a writing course at Dublin City University and the University of Iowa for a website design course in journalism in order to help facilitate the CWA transition from print to an online newspaper. Last summer she returned to Japan on a Youth For Understanding scholarship for a full six weeks, to advance her language skills. As her interest in Africa grew, she realized it would be very helpful to learn French. She completed Japanese 500 and French 200 before graduating.

Harper wants to study abroad in college and was pleased to discover that 70% of Colby students do just that. The school has one of the most popular study abroad programs of any U.S. college or university. She hopes to travel through Europe, Asia and Africa and is exploring summer internship opportunities with a Japanese bank in Hong Kong and World Bicycle Relief in Zambia. Because she would like to become fully fluent in Japanese, Harper specifically looked for schools with Japanese language programs.

In addition to these core interest areas, Harper has participated in a wide variety of activities at CWA. She helped start the Upper School’s Human Rights club. She was a member of the cast of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Wizard of Oz, and two One Acts. She has taken piano lessons on campus from Ilona Norins, a CWA piano teacher, playing in the Joy of Piano Trios Festival and the University of Puget Sound Orchestral Recital Series. In addition she has served as senior class community service rep. “Name a CWA club and I’ve been to one of their meetings,” she jokes.

Harper took a total of eight Advanced Placement exams – Calculus AB, Chemistry, European history, U.S. history, English language, English literature, Japanese language and culture, and psychology – showing the breadth and strength of her academic preparation for a college as rigorous as Colby. She was also named a National Merit Commended Scholar based on her PSAT scores.

“Like Charles Wright and the Montessori school I attended before that, Colby is a very small liberal arts school. Fewer than 500 students graduate each year,” reports Harper. Because she is confident she wants to attend medical school, Harper did not want to finish college with a heavy load of loans. The package Colby offered her was very generous, with a merit scholarship specifically awarded for her academic achievements.

For Harper, the unique combination of an ideal location, strong academic and athletic programs, and plenty of interesting extracurriculars was just the right fit. She’s spending the summer with her family, running, and enjoying the Washington weather before she begins her trek 3,000 miles eastbound. Like most fall sport athletes, however, it will really be just a few short weeks before she reports to college. “I’m excited that so many CWA students are going to schools on the East Coast this year,” she says. “I’ve really enjoyed my experience here and I look forward to being friends with many of my classmates for a long time.”

“Every year the students at Marquette do a play centered on a social justice issue,” explains Coddington. “That link between theater and social change is very similar to what I was trying to create when I directed a One Act called The Nazi (written by filmmaker Rod Lurie) my junior year at Charles Wright. Building awareness about human rights and topical issues is a really fantastic use of theater as art and I’m excited not only to learn how to do that in college but to work with students and professors who value that sort of theater.”

“I had Dr. Tjardes as a teacher for three years. It’s uncommon to have a teacher that long but she’s been a real mentor and very influential in my life personally and professionally. I talked a lot with my family and my college counselors, Mr. Janes and Mr. Blyler, about where I should go to school, but it was Dr. Tjardes who had a huge influence on my final decision. I had it narrowed down to two schools. I was leaning toward the other one and it felt like everything around me – including my family and the financial aid offers – said I should choose Marquette, but I was sort of blocked against it.

“I asked Dr. Tjardes what she thought and she said she’d look at both schools and get back to me. I was really just looking for an affirmation that my belief in this other school was right; I thought for sure she’d recommend that other school but she said ‘Alex, I think you’ll have a much better time at Marquette because you’ll be surrounded with the sort of people you want to spend time with, and I also think Marquette will make you a better person.’ That was really the final piece for me and I chose Marquette. The student-teacher relationship at Charles Wright is so different from other schools. It’s mentors like Sue Tjardes and Jenise Petrich, who I know will both be a part of the rest of my life, that Charles Wright is what it is.”

Coddington entered Charles Wright in seventh grade when his family returned from Europe where he attended Department of Defense schools. In the Upper School he participated in drama productions every year taking on both cast and crew roles, appearing onstage as Linus in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and the Meat Loaf-inspired Oberon in the MTV rock extravaganza of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and behind the scenes as the stage manager for Hamlet and The Real Inspector Hound. He wrote three One Act plays and directed two. He also took the improv class and took technical theater in both the old West Wing theater/choir room/study hall and the new Donn Laughlin Theater which opened his junior year.

Coddington participated in summer writing and directing workshops in New York City with Young Playwrights, Inc (founded by Stephen Sondheim), and in Washington, DC, at George Washington University. His junior year Creighton King offered to teach a playwriting workshop course at CWA to three interested students. “It was wonderful to have an outlet at school where we had concentrated time to work on developing our writing skills into something much more than a hobby,” says Coddington.

Coddington’s interests were not limited to drama alone. He also excelled in English and history, taking Advanced Placement courses in European and U.S. history. He loved his Junior Research Project about Edward Albee. He traveled to Poland with classmates to learn about the Holocaust and attended two Model UN conferences. He sang in the choir, joined the Green Key club and played Santa at the Chapel Home Christmas Dinner. He took yoga classes and was as engaged and visible on campus as anyone who participated in athletics. He also volunteered during the summers as a day camp counselor for Olympia Parks and Recreation.

Coddington began seriously considering colleges his junior year. He went to several college fairs and took a Winterim tour of Northwest schools. This helped him begin to develop a sense of the type of schools he might be interested in and helped him cross a few others off his list. During spring break of his junior year he went to the East Coast with his mom and saw 11 schools in nine days. “That trip really opened up a lot of possibilities for me because I got to see schools with very different education styles. I saw everything from tiny Bennington with 500 students to New York University with more than 40,000” says Coddington.

Coddington’s advice for future college applicants: “There is no substitute for visiting a school. I saw a total of 25. One of the colleges I visited I was really excited about based on what I saw on their website. The campus looked absolutely beautiful in the publicity materials and I really hit it off with the admissions officer I met a college fair, but when I got there it was awful. It was way too quiet and I didn’t connect with any of the other students. They were serving garden nuggets in the cafeteria. It was just not going happen. I saw all the schools I was applied to and it really helped me make my final decision.”

The summer before his senior year he took a tour Midwest schools with his family. “Initially I didn’t think I would apply to any Midwest schools, but after visiting the area I decided there’s just a very good stock of people. One of my final considerations was to ask myself, ‘What kind of people do I want to be spending the new four years with?’ I love the East Coast and will more than likely live there someday, but there’s a vibe in the Midwest that feels perfect for the first few years I’m out on my own in the world.”

One of those Midwest schools was Marquette. “It was a perfect sunny day, which can only help a school make a good impression,” recalls Coddington. “I had a great tour. Of the schools I visited, it was the only one where people really seemed to make the extra effort to make you feel like you were part of the community. They even gave everyone on the tour a free t-shirt. They were the friendliest people I came across. That sounds corny but it’s so true. They don’t make you feel like it will be a privilege to go there, but being there you get the sense that it will be.”

Coddington intends to become a theater major, so he scheduled a meeting with the head of the theater department. “The program at Marquette isn’t about building actors or directors or writers, it’s about building holistic theater artists, while still offering really intensive classes in the track you’re most interested in,” he concluded.

Among the other schools to which he applied was a conservatory program where 80% of the classes he would take as a theater major would be theater classes, and most would be writing classes. “I still want to take English and history classes and become a well educated and well rounded person and have all that inform my writing as opposed to just learning about writing, which is surprisingly not as helpful as people think,” says Coddington.

Last fall, Coddington applied to nine schools – a few very big universities, a few midsize schools, and a few small liberal arts colleges. He was admitted to four, including one school he considered a reach, and waitlisted at a fifth. After much debate, and the previously mentioned discussion with Sue Tjardes, he chose Marquette.

Coddington and fellow Class of 2011 alum Emily Harper are hoping to spend next summer working in Zambia as interns for World Bicycle Relief, an organization they became involved with as students at CWA. It’s the sort of world experience Coddington hopes will give him a unique perspective on humanity that he can use as a writer. He wants to be sure his college experience complements that development.

He wrapped up his senior year with an internship helping Andrew Evans ’05 put on a big magic show. He accepted his diploma from his father Upper School history teacher Nick Coddington and cheered enthusiastically when his dad received this year’s Inspirational Faculty Award. With that, the curtain fell on Alex Coddington’s six-year run at Charles Wright.