Vacaville Insider: Class Of 1979

Ed Santopadre graduated from Vacaville High School in 1979 and is now the school's principal.

Ed Santopadre should have known better than to ask the question when he already knew the answer.

Santopadre is the new principal at Vacaville High School. When he recently held a faculty meeting, he asked the teachers who graduated from the school to stand. More than 20 of the 100 did.

The alumni group included Santopadre’s son, Chris, Jeff Baker and Jeff Boele. Baker has joined his father, Larry, on the faculty. Boele’s dad, Mike, retired in June after 35 years with the Bulldogs.

Santopadre should have known better because he also graduated from Vacaville High. He started as a coach in 1979, became a teacher in 1998 and was named assistant principal in 2005.

In fact, he is one of four 1979 graduates working in the school’s office. Robin Fowler and Sandy Loustaunau are secretaries, and Lois Chancellor is the head counselor. Talk about a class reunion.

“We all grew up here,” Santopadre said. “We preach the family atmosphere, but we also live it.”

Chancellor knows that all too well. She returned to Vacaville High in 1985 as a teacher and became a counselor in 2001.

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” she said.

Loustaunau returned to her alma mater four years ago, and Fowler followed during the 2007-08 school year. They double-crossed the cross-town rivalry after having worked at Will C. Wood High.

Fowler and Loustaunau were actually friends in school, but Santopadre and Chancellor were hardly strangers.

“None of us were in the same group, but I knew all of them,” Loustaunau said.

Fowler transferred to Vacaville High as a junior from Napa and quickly realized the school reflected the city.

“Everybody grew up together,” she said. “I was really the new kid. I was the outsider.”

That was then. Now she feels right at home.