Tom Lowney, Class of 1944

Tom Lowney was recently inducted into the Marin Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame Class of 2008.

While at SRHS Tom was an active athlete. He won 10 block letters in four different sports. He was an all-league left end in football, qualified for the section meet in track and was a skilled basketball player, scoring 33 points in a city league basketball game (then a county record). Most markedly he pitched a five hit shut out victory for SR vs. Tam which broke a 24 year losing streak in baseball.

While in high school Tom enlisted in the Air Force Reserves as he wanted to join their pilot program. But at the time there were too many applicants so after graduation Tom played baseball at Marin Junior College, now known as College of Marin, and then was among 80 men who were sent to Montana for six months of officers training. He then joined the 301st Fighter Wing Group. He went to Okinawa, Japan and even played quarterback for one of his base's football teams.

Tom settled in Santa Rosa. He worked the night sift for the CHP and coached St. Eugene's CYP Basketball team to a 47 game winning streak. He also coached JV football, freshman basketball, tennis and baseball at Cardinal Newman High School.

Stephen Graham, Class of 1963

Stephen is a graduate of San Rafael High School, class of 1963. He went on to acquire an English degree from Yale University then a law degree from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

After graduating from law school Stephen worked in private practice in San Francisco, followed by working at the San Francisco district attorney's office. He then joined the US attorney's office and led the northwest region of the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

He won a judicial seat in Marin County. As a judge in Marin he presided over thousands of cases. He was known for his sternness with disrespectful or sloppy lawyers and was as notably courteous with courtroom visitors and local students studying about law.

He was well liked by his peers and was known to do the unpopular thing if he knew it was the right thing.

Judge Graham has now, after serving twenty years in the Marin Superior Court, retired from the bench.

He plans to continue serving on other courts through the Assigned Judges Program administered by the state judiciary. The program assigns retired or sitting judges to fill temporary vacancies.

Matt Amis, Class of 1995

Matt Amis is a S.R.H.S. Graduate while at S.R.H.S. Matt was the News Director at KSRH Radio and was a active member of The International Club the club put on numerous Bar-B-Q luncheons for the school staff the fees for these luncheons helped a poor child in India to have a better life.

After leaving SRHS Matt completed a 180 hour state certified Activity Director training program taught at College of Marin this certification approved by the California Dept. of Public Health trains people to work with older adults and frail elders in recreation departments of convalescent hospitals and retirement homes. Matt has been employed doing the above duties since 2000 with Kindred Healthcare where he also supervises volunteers as well.

Matt has been interested in broadcasting since the age of 15 when he sat in the control room of KRON and watched a live broadcast being filmed because of this event in his life Matt was granted a degree in Radio Production and Radio Management after wrapping up a 2 year vocational program taught by the Marin County Office of Education. Since 1997 Matt has been a sound editor with Channel 26 Community Television and crewed on over 400 videos and is a member of The Alliance For Community Media. Matt volunteers 6 hours a week in the offices of San Rafael City Hall and in the past volunteered in the offices of the Red Cross and KQED.

During his free time Matt enjoys going to the movies, and going to weekly luncheons with his buddies and visiting with family members.

Tu Dang, Class of 1996

Tu Dang left her birthplace in Southeast Asia as a baby with her family and came to the United States to escape from the Communist regime in Vietnam. They settled in California and made Marin home. Tu attended schools in Marin, including San Rafael High School for her entire high school career. In fact, she served as Student Body President at SRHS her senior year.

After graduating from SRHS Tu attended college at George Washington University, studying as an art major, then international economics. She spent time studying abroad as well in Vietnam, Thailand and England.

After graduating college Tu spent three years in Mauritania as part of the Peace Corp.

After her time in the Peace Corps Tu returned to school, earning her master's from Columbia University.

She currently is employed by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for the State Department, working on labor affairs. She is based in Washington D.C. but travels internationally often as a part of her job. She loves being actively engaged in international affairs and encourages youth to think about foreign or civil service jobs.

Tony Vidal, SRHS Alumni from late 1960s

From Marin IJ newspaper Friday, January 30, 2009 & on Marin IJ website http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_11585722?IADID=Search-www.marinij.com-www.marinij.comPosted: 01/29/2009 06:52:46 PM PST

Film producer returns to alma mater San Rafael High to direct movie by Paul Liberatore (Marin IJ)

To hear him tell it, Tony Vidal was "a quiet, nerdy guy who studied a lot and got good grades" at San Rafael High School in the late 1960s. But he wasn't above playing a prank or two.

Three decades later, the 56-year-old film producer and screenwriter returned to his alma mater to direct his first movie, "The Prankster," a teen comedy about high school kids who rebel against authority by pulling what Vidal calls "sophisticated and fun pranks" - like humiliating their boorish dean and sabotaging the Senior Follies.

"The people who are pranked deserve it," Vidal said the other day in his Sausalito office. "The Pranksters are kind of like Robin Hoods who right the wrongs of the high school world. They get even through their pranks. Kids love the idea of that, of course. Every kid is a prankster to some degree."

Vidal, who lives in Larkspur with his wife and 10-year-old daughter, called on some of his own memories as a Marin teenager when he was writing the script. He graduated from San Rafael High in 1970, and subtitled the film, "You Thought Your High School Was a Joke!"

"My frame of reference was San Rafael High School," he said. "In my mind's eye, I was remembering everything the way it was when I was a student. I imagined things like a fight behind the gym. As luck would have it, we ended up staging the movie's fight behind the gym just as I had envisioned it. In a way it was the perfect locale."

The independent film, the first for Vidal's Marin-based Prankster Entertainment, was shot on campus over 23 days in September and October with a cast of young television stars from shows such as "Lincoln Heights," "Hannah Montana" and "Saturday Night Live."

Since the movie was being made while the regular school year was in progress, it was a case of art and life existing side-by-side.

"For the most part, it went great," said San Rafael High Principal Judy Colton, who had a small part in the movie. "There were some glitches, but they were very willing to work around our schedule and everybody was respectful. The kids were excited, but after a while you get used to having film crews there every day. Still, it was kind of fun to watch."

And to actually be in. Colton was cast in a small speaking role, playing the dean's secretary.

"I had one line in the movie," she said. "I said, 'Good morning, dean, here's your mail.'"

For its use of the campus, renamed Tres Rios (Three Rivers) High in the movie, Prankster Entertainment paid the school $30,000, which went to modernize its Third Street entrance.

As an additional thank you, "The Prankster" will have its premiere for the students on Feb. 12 in the newly renovated Hayes Theater on campus. On Feb. 15, it screens at the Lark Theater in Larkspur for an audience that will include industry people and, Vidal hopes, potential distributors.

Vidal's goal is to have "The Prankster" in theaters by the fall, but so far it is without a distribution deal, one of the challenges of independent production.

 A USC film school graduate, Vidal is a former head story analyst for Orion Pictures and the Ladd Co., where he evaluated scripts for blockbusters such as "Born on the Fourth of July," "Romancing the Stone," "Ten" and "Caddyshack."

He became head of the screenwriting program at UC Davis, his college alma mater, and worked as a senior writer-director for a Silicon Valley startup, streaming business and learning video programs over the Internet.

He recently co-wrote "Her Best Move," an indie about girls' soccer that was distributed by MGM this past summer.

Vidal put up most of the $1.7 million budget for "The Prankster" himself, and the future of his fledgling company is riding on its success. "I wanted to make a movie that was true to my own vision, and the only way to do that was produce it myself," he said.

Still quiet and soft spoken, he's set up shop in a funky one-room office on the Sausalito waterfront with posters of "Zorba the Greek," "The Shawshank Redemption" and the 1950s B-movie classic "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" decorating its walls.

He shares the space with a small staff that includes associate producer Michael Valentino, a Tamalpais High School grad with deep roots in Marin (his father owns Stefano's Pizza in Mill Valley).

With five screenplays ready to go before the cameras, Vidal hopes to be the only full-time independent film production company in Marin, and he's written an appropriately new-agey manifesto for a "conscious media company whose goal is to awaken slumbering spirits" and "to put people in touch with the sacred."

Like another independent Marin filmmaker, George Lucas, Vidal is a fan of Joseph Campbell and a big believer in Campbell's "The Power of Myth."

And like Lucas he's rejected Hollywood to stay in Marin.

"I'm from here and I've lived here for the past 28 years so, for selfish reasons, I wanted to work close to home," he explained. "There's no reason not to work in Marin. We're a 50-minute flight from L.A. and the business is so decentralized anyway. So much of it has gone to other states and other countries.

"That said, there's no financial incentive to shoot in Northern California, but there is an aesthetic to this place, the beauty of the area. And there's a very talented pool of people here, actors and technicians you can call upon to make movies. So why not?"

He wrote "The Prankster" because he's comfortable in the teenage genre and familiar with it, naming favorites like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Clueless," "Sixteen Candles" and "Breaking Away."

The protagonist of "The Prankster," Chris Karas, played by Matt Angel ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," "Raising the Bar" and Disney Channel's "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody") is a shy, handsome "A" student of Greek descent, not unlike a young Tony Vidal.

To the dismay of his Old World father, Chris wants to get into a top college and has to reconcile his ambition not only with his dad, but with the troublesome demands of his Prankster buddies.

The movie has a fairly stock cast of characters - the hottie editor of the school paper that Chris falls for, the wimpy, insufferable student body president, the catty blonde cheerleader, the bully jock, the handsome fellow Prankster who temps Chris at every turn, Chris' eccentric but wise uncle.

"I wanted a movie with a real story and a message for young people," Vidal said. "The message is to find out who you truly are and to have the courage to be that person. Or, put another way, the theme is to be authentic and true to yourself."

Tony Vidal has certainly been that.

Paul Liberatore can be reached at liberatore@marinij.com.

MORE ALUMNI PROFILES COMING SOON!