Bill Waight
Tom and I grew up in the same North Tacoma neighborhood where we attended Mason Jr. High and later Woodrow Wilson High, as it was then known. We were both in Mrs. Stonestreet’s drama class as sophomores, a unique blend of seniors, juniors and lowly sophs. It was a rather free form creative class with an underlying element of fierce competition. Tom’s method was one of the quieter approaches; it spoke of his reliability and was probably associated with the start of his professional skills. There were two school plays each year and I think Tom had a hand in most of the productions in his three years at Wilson. Later, when I finally caught up with him at a re-union in 2013, he told me he had even acted as a kind of de facto drama teacher in his senior year; the very same class that he had taken only two years before. As much as I think of him as a person committed to theatre, I think of him mainly as an essential component of my memory and concept of North Tacoma. I am currently looking at an almost hilarious cast photo for the Wilson 1967 production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” (hilarious because while we thought our acting might have been successful, our idea of stage makeup was unintentionally comedic). The photo shows a cast of seven, six of which I am certain did not choose to spend their adult lives in Pierce County. Tom alone is the one who stayed full time, start to finish. It is hard for me to imagine a Tacoma without him.
Thank you, Tom.
Bill Waight, Bellingham, WA
