Services Sunday for RB High photography teacher

Most will remember Larry Gagnon through his photography — capturing tragedies as well as the joys in people’s lives.

After a series of illnesses this spring, he died Sunday of cardiac arrest at a San Diego hospital, according to his friend, Pauline Repard.

He worked for the Bernardo News in the mid-1980s, later transitioned to Pomerado Newspaper Group in 1992 when it purchased the RB paper, becoming the Rancho Bernardo News Journal, and freelanced more recently for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

“Everyone who read those newspapers will remember him,” said Poway Unified School District’s communications director, Sharon Raffer, who initially worked with Gagnon at the Bernardo News.

She also crossed paths again with Gagnon, while he covered sports and other PUSD activities and special events, she said.

“People throughout the district knew him — and his photos,” she said.

Students and faculty at Rancho Bernardo High School were recalling this week the ways Gagnon challenged his digital photography students, making a difference in their lives, many moving on to film school.

According to Principal Paul Robinson, Gagnon had an infectious smile, jovial attitude and inspired the best in his students.

“He was always compassionate to his students,” said digital media instructor Ross Kallen.

Kallen said that Gagnon’s field experience as a photographer was what prompted him to encourage Gagnon to teach photography at RB High, he said.

“He saw where the (film) industry was going and championed digital photography,” Kallen said.

Gagnon developed the curriculum, got approval from PUSD officials, then implemented what would become the first of its kind in the Regional Occupation Program classes, Kallen said.

Journalist Maly Ly with the San Diego Asian Film Foundation profiled Gagnon a few years ago in a story she wrote about how he inspired young filmmakers.

During her interview with him, she observed that Gagnon ran his class much like a production shop.

Students were visibly engrossed in what they were producing instead of looking at the hand on the hour clock tick, she said in that story.

Under Gagnon’s tutelage, RB High photo students won several prestigious awards, including the San Diego Innovative Video in Education (IVIE), as well as top honors in the RedEye Film Festival and other competitions.

It was not usual to receive an interesting story from Gagnon by e-mail, “sometimes obscure, but always hilarious,” Kallen said.

During his previous careers, Deputy Chief Don Shellhammer of Vista Fire Department crossed paths with Gagnon several times starting in 1982.

“He was a dispatcher for us, then I was a flight medic with Life Flight — and saw him again,” Shellhammer said. “After that, I lived in Rancho Penasquitos and we crossed paths again when he was a photographer.”

Shellhammer described Gagnon as “someone professional with a big heart.”