On North Stadium Way, Tacoma, an unlikely fortress of Corinthian pillars and sandstone gazes across a large athletic bowl to Stadium High School.
When I last visited an exhibit at the nearby Washington State Historical Society Museum with my mother and son, we sat for tea on the roof of the museum. Commencement Bay stretched out beyond the trees, the sun was high, and the French Renaissance roof of Stadium High dominated the scene.
My mother, since deceased, was almost 90 at that time, and recalled that Stadium High provided her first formal school experience upon arriving by train in the West with her Iowa-bred family…