West High’s Cole Bruxvoort pursuing career in carpentry

IOWA CITY — After graduating from West High School, Cole Bruxvoort will attend Kirkwood Community College to pursue a career in carpentry and construction management.

“I'm excited to get better at something I really enjoy and be able to do something that I've learned throughout my life and make it something useful and be able to pursue that and then be able to help people also,” Bruxvoort, 17, said.

Kirkwood’s carpentry and construction management program combines classroom experience with hands-on introduction to the skills needed to pursue this career. In addition to lecture and lab activities, the program works in apprenticeship and job shadow opportunities.

Bruxvoort is one of 339 students who will mark their graduation at 7 p.m. on June 3 from West High School at the Xtream Arena.

Bruxvoort, who has lived in Iowa City for nearly his entire life, said one of his main interests is playing sports, whether that is through video games or with his friends. He also enjoys spending time with his family.

Baseball has taken up most of Bruxvoort’s time at West High, with practice occurring throughout most of the year. The team practices six days a week — after school during the school year and Saturday mornings — for two and a half to three hours.

In addition to practice, the team plays around two to three doubleheader games a week during the season.

Bruxvoort has played at third base, middle infield and has recently been pitching.

“I started working with my coaches a lot more on (pitching) to get better at that and be able to help the team and get on the field more consistently,” Bruxvoort said.

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Bruxvoort said baseball has “given me my work ethic, I guess you could say, for the future to help motivate me.”

Something that motivated Bruxvoort to pursue carpentry was an elective carpentry class at West High. He had already taken a class introducing him to construction management.

“We worked with tools and built a variety of different things, and so that really piqued my interest,” Bruxvoort said about the carpentry class. “ … I did some more research after that, … and it's really caught my eye, and it was like a path I felt like I wanted to take.”

West High teacher Keith Kraeplin was Bruxvoort’s residential construction teacher last school year. The class focused on the process of home construction from foundation to wall framing, as well as installing windows and siding.

Kraeplin said Bruxvoort was eager to learn and asked questions to get a better understanding of why things were done a specific way.

“My view of Cole Bruxvoort in my class was that he had a willingness to learn about what it takes to properly build a residential home,” Kraeplin said. “The hands-on nature of the course allowed him and other students to learn by doing and provide an exploratory experience that students find beneficial.”

Bruxvoort has considered pursuing baseball at Kirkwood but decided he wants to focus his attention on carpentry and construction management instead.

“They help us like get a job throughout the class too, so then I can focus a lot on that and growing through that to help then grow my future,” Bruxvoort said.

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