Ernie Lopez

After graduating in June 1970 from Pacific, I DID go to the Catholic seminary. A mutual friend introduced Sue Sotelo (Pacific Class of 1971) to me to be part of a youth retreat program with our parish. After a few church activities, writing, calling by pay phones and dating, I left the seminary in 1973 and we married each other on August 24th, 1974. Steve Nunley from the class of 1971 was our best man.
Sue and I stayed local. We lived in San Leandro until 1986 when we moved to Castro Valley where we enjoy the proximity to Lake Chabot, our family, friends, work and church.
After many years with Social Services, I became a State Farm insurance agent in 1984. Sue has been with me in this career for eighteen years. In many aspects, it has been a good career choice for us, but to do it right, requires a lot of focus and time. We find balance in our lives by traveling when we can, going for walks, dancing and keeping connected with family, friends and nature. Sue spends her quiet time with books, flower designing and feeding 25% of the birds in the Lake Chabot area. I go still go backpacking and motorcycling short and long trips. I have a plan to live forever..... So far my plan is working perfectly. :-)

All of my four siblings attended Pacific High and all of Sue Sotelo's eight siblings did too. My oldest sister, BARBARA Lopez was in the class of 1964. She married Ron Runolfson also from '64. Both reside in San Clemente. GERI Lopez Class of '70 is married to Randy Burns in El Sobrante. CHARLES (Class of 74) is marrried to Carol Amedeo in Brentwood. SUSIE Lopez (Class of '78) is married Mark Mercer in San Diego. All my siblings had two children each. We are all checking in on our parents who are still living independently in their original home in San Leandro. (Dad will soon be 91.)

Interacting with you all in high school helped shape who I am today. I appreciate the experiences on the track team, class settings,dates, spirit week projects, dances, hiking club, ecology club, rally club and conversations. Everything we did involved a plan, a system and a team - much like it is with other things we do now outside of high school. We practice what we learn and find success and confidence in what we do. We also had a component in there called FUN. I still try to have fun and find that we were taught well at Pacific. We just had to participate and pay attention.