Fullerton High Principal Anthony Mason Dies at 40

Anthony Louis Mason, principal of Fullerton High School, has died at UC San Diego Medical Center of complications of cancer. He was 40.

The former college basketball star and mathematics teacher was described by students and colleagues Tuesday as a man possessed of both a sense of humor and a sense of purpose.

“He was one of those people you go to when you need someone to talk to,” said Frank McCarroll, the varsity basketball coach at La Habra High School, where Mason served as assistant principal for two years before being appointed Fullerton High principal in 1989.

“It’s a great loss for (Fullerton) because he would have done wonderful things for that school,” McCarroll said.

Colleen Curz, a junior at Fullerton High, remembered him as a tall, slim, bearded man who used to joke to students that he looked like Abraham Lincoln.

“Most kids don’t like administration, but they thought he was really nice,” Curz said.

During his first few months at Fullerton High, Mason put in motion a plan to improve the school’s reading test scores, said Assistant Principal Pat Putnam.

“He was a really great man,” said Natalie Reed, vice president of the junior class at Fullerton High. “He was always involved . . . always talking to the kids. Everybody really liked him a lot.”

When Fullerton High drama students learned that Mason was to be hospitalized in early December, Reed said, they decided to stage a special showing of their school play as a tribute.

“They did a special performance just so he could see it,” Reed said. “They surprised him. He went in and they did the whole play for him, and they gave him an ice cream sundae to eat while he watched.”

Born in Glendale, Mason had lived in Orange County for 22 years. He attended Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, and graduated from Chapman College in 1970.

According to Putnam, Mason was a basketball coach and math teacher in the Orange Unified School District before becoming an administrator there, and also served as an assistant principal in Whittier.

Mason, who died Saturday, is survived by his wife, Alicia, and four children, Kyle, Christina, Aaron and Jennifer of Fullerton; his mother, Betty Jane Mason of Ventura; two brothers, Stephan A. Mason of Ventura and Gerald E. Mason of Los Angeles; and his grandmother, Margaret Olson of Ventura.

A Rosary and memorial service will be at 7:30 tonight at St. Juliana Falconieri Church, 1316 N. Acacia Ave., Fullerton. A funeral Mass will be celebrated there at 10 a.m. Thursday.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to a scholarship memorial fund in Mason’s name. Checks should be made out to Dollars for Scholars and mailed to the Fullerton Joint Union High School District, 780 Beechwood Ave., Fullerton, Calif. 92635, in care of Shirley Finton.