The SDA reunion, put on by the Alumni Committee, was teaming with life and potency! The retired teachers and student alumni were happy to muse about the old days of San Dieguito High School and all the shenanigans that went on.
An iconic auto shop teacher of SDA spent some time discussing pranks and lamenting about the federal government. Abran Quevedo taught from 1993 to 2006. He was first a mechanic before a teacher but then realized at 36 years of age that he would rather not be an old man fixing cars for the rest of his life but instead as a teacher.
His reputation was not just know as being a kick-ass auto shop teacher at SDA, but also for his lack of hearing he won from many years in the “shop.” Students would undermine his poor hearing and pull practical jokes on him. One memorable time he recalls that there was a fire drill but he couldn’t even hear it so his whole class just continued as usual. However, the lack of hearing didn’t prevent him from teaching for he claimed to have “gasoline in his veins” literally and figuratively.
There were alumni, young and old, from San Dieguito High School and the Academy. One woman I spoke with graduated in 1940. She claimed that back in the day, Vista was the rival high school and that there were 40 kids in her entire class. A light gleamed in her eyes as she remembered, “The school was built out in the boonies, [and] the area was all sagebrush out here.” Though that soon was changed, as a malt shop and a bank opened up at the school in 1938, during The Great Depression. A warm smile creeps slowly onto her face; she wets her lips, draws in a sigh, and murmurs, “There was a time here when you could shoot rabbits and coyotes”.
Another vibrant alumnus had the aura of a 1960’s teenager but perhaps it was just the horn rimmed glasses that adorned his face. He was part of the class of 1973, meaning the war in Vietnam was still in full swing. A controversy he remembers at the school was whether to let students go barefoot or not. Though San Dieguito High School was a classical high school at the time with cheerleaders and football stars, he remembers that the ASB president was arrested in front of the Cardiff post office in an anti-war demonstration.