Andre Lopez:
CLASS OF 1960
Arroyo High SchoolClass of 1960
El monte, CA
Andre's Story
Hello class of 1960, herewith is an abridged bio of the past 55 years. I would have graduated with most of you, but like so many foolish boys of my generation I dropped out of school in late 1959 and joined the army. Eventually I was sent to Berlin Germany, and was there on Sunday August 13th the day the wall went up. After my discharge in 1962, I wound up in St. Thomas the U.S. Virgin Islands where I took a job as a deck hand on a 62 foot charter schooner for a year. After the Virgin Island adventure I went to New York City where I have family and took a job, as some sort of trainee, in a stock brokerage firm, but quickly discovered that I was not cut out for a Brooks Brothers office type of Job, and in due course I began studying at the New York Institute of Photography at night under the G.I. Bill. After graduation from N.Y.I.of P. I managed to find work as an assistant to a high profile fashion and commercial photographer "Bert Stern". This was a grand and exciting time for a couple of years, and the photographic education I received was priceless, but the world of High Fashion, Glamour and Fancy people was not for me. I decided to strike out on my own and my wife (to whom I'm still married) and I moved to Spain in 1968 where I worked as a free-lance photographer for four years while producing a photo book eventually published as the "Gypsies of Spain" by the Macmillan Co.
We returned to New York in the early '70s where I was offered a contract by the Dial Press to produce a photo book on the American-Indians of New York State entitled "Iroquois---Portrait of a Nation". Nan and I lived on the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation for two years while completing this book. In tandem to this project I produced "Pagans In Our Midst" a social history of the Iroquois of New York State 1885-1910. Somehow, during this time, I also managed to acquire a bachelors degree in Cultural Anthropology from the state University of New York and father two sons.
The wages of art are generally poverty and I was no exception. With a...Expand for more
family of two sons and a wife we left New York and moved to Seattle Washington in 1981 were my wife enrolled in medical school at the "John Bayster College of Naturopathic Medicine" and I began working as a remodeling contractor and small builder, and taught the History of Photography in the continuing education departments of several Seattle area Universities. After 16 years in Seattle we Retired and moved to Belize, Central America in 1997 where we now own a small ranch (40 acres) and raise Aberdeen Red Angus cattle. During the past 18 years I have become a Rotarian and in 2012 I was elected to be Rotary Governor of our District which includes Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. In other words I was elected to be Chief-Cook-and-Bottle-Washer, the Grand Poobaah, Chief-Honcho and general all around problem solver for roughly 1,500 Rotarians who all think themselves smarter, better educated and better bureaucrats than me. And as I reflect on all of this they may well be right! This task of visiting and babysitting each of the 69 Clubs in our District kept me busy and away from Belize intermittently for nearly two years. The sad part of all this is that my Spanish hasn't improved all that much. Nevertheless, my fellow Rotarians were generous, kind and forgiving of my butchering the language of Cervantes, Unamuno, Lorca et al.---- A million dollar experience that I wouldn't pay one copper to do over again.
Over the years the sports which I have been passionate about are sky-diving which I gave up in 1995 (much to my wife's delight), and cycling. I have plunked on a Banjo for many years and still remain hopelessly awful, but I'll get better before I die. Currently I am trying to complete a photographic book on Belize entitled "The Belizeans----an Intimate Portrait". My two sons continue to live in Seattle. Nan and I visit the U.S. on occasion, mostly Seattle and my sister Leonore who lives in New Port Beach, California. Oh yes, I have worn a beard since I left the army in 1962 and I smoke about 3 or 4 cigars a year.
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