Local potter receives Fulbright award

Advertiser Staff

Bob McWilliams, a well-known local potter and teacher whose inspirational teaching methods have doubled interest in the pottery program at Punahou School, has recently been recognized as a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholar.

After a nationwide selection process, he was given an all-expense-paid trip to Japan for three weeks this summer with 200 other teachers.

The program, financed by the Japanese government and facilitated by the International Institute for Education in Washington, D.C., is an idea and cultural exchange focusing on the professional development of teachers learning from one another.

For 20 years, McWilliams has yearned to visit Japan and the pottery studios in Kyoto. The Eastern influence in his pottery has been prevalent in the work he has exhibited at Pacific Handcrafter's Guild craft fairs and Hawai'i Craftsmen shows, in local and Mainland galleries and in pottery magazines.