Camerino Martin Lopez Jr. died peacefully at his home in Chandler, Arizona, on Dec. 17, 2024, at the age of 80, after a long illness from Congestive Heart Failure and COPD. At the end he was surrounded with family – as he had hoped to be – his wife, his children and grandchildren.
Services will be held at St Francis Catholic Church in Superior on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025. Viewing is at 8:30 a.m., Rosary at 9:30 a.m. and Mass at 10 a.m. Interment will follow at Fairview Cemetery.
Camerino was born on June 4, 1944, in Superior, the middle child of Camerino Lopez Sr. and Mercedes Moreno Lopez. He attended Superior High School, where he was a star football player, graduating in 1962. He attended Northern Arizona University (Arizona State College) for one year, but then returned to Superior and worked in the mines for about seven years. A serious mining accident then sent him in the direction of his career in education.
After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, Camerino started in 1973 as a classroom teacher in Guadalupe, Arizona, but he then moved into administrative roles, and gained his master’s in counseling. In education Camerino’s greatest achievements have been both at the local and the national levels. He was proud of his influential years, 1982-1992 and 1993-94, as the Principal at Garfield School, an inner-city school in Phoenix, where student achievement was boosted by parent involvement, keeping the gangs out of the schools, and a bilingual program that eventually became nationally famous.
Camerino’s bilingual program at Garfield came to the notice of then-U.S. Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan, William Bennett, who personally visited the program at Garfield and then changed his mind about the value of bilingual programs, after seeing that the one at Garfield really worked. Bennett’s change of mind allowed federal bilingual programs to remain funded under President Reagan. As a result of Camerino’s contact with William Bennett, Nancy Reagan invited Camerino to the White House for the inauguration of her campaign against drugs in schools and then Camerino was invited to serve, and did serve under two successive presidents, Reagan and George H. W. Bush, on the President’s National Commission for Drug Free Schools.
Camerino will be greatly missed by friends and family. He and his wife, Judith, together have six children (Debbi, Danielle (Phillip), Camerino III (Rene), Isabel (Barry), Laura (Chris) and Emily), 13 grandchildren (Zain, S.J., Daniela (Maria), Gabriela, Azalea, Camryn (Alex), Camerino IV, Amanda (Evan), Gwynneth, Aiden (Jade), Liberty, Ellen and Jack) and one great-grandchild (Quinn). Camerino’s older brother Hector, and older sister, Geri, will also miss him, as will numerous cousins, nephews and nieces. Camerino is preceded in death by his younger brother, Steve, his younger sister, Punkin, and his parents.