Lowell Amrine was born a tenth moon water dragon to a pair of wood ox in Martins Ferry, Ohio, a community that aside from claiming to be the first established township west of the Ohio River is also the birth place of William Dean Howells and James Dickey. Lowell was spared a youth in that historic river valley, however, when the family relocated to the southwestern edge of the Mojave Desert in Joshua Tree, California well before his first birthday. Seventeen years later, Lowell enrolled at San Bernardino Valley College and started a journey in graphic arts that would include photography courses at Chaffey College and culminate with the publication of two photographic monographs in 1980.

By 1984, he had returned to San Bernardino Valley College and three semesters later entered California State University San Bernardino graduating in June of 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Passing the CBEST in January ’86 allowed him to substitute teach for both the Redlands and San Bernardino Unified School Districts through graduation while continuing to publish articles, short fiction, and photography. In September 1987, he took his first full time teaching assignment with the Rialto Unified School District as a member of the English Department at Eisenhower High School, completing his Secondary Clear Credential through an internship program at CSUSB in 1988.

Starting from that point until his departure from IKE in 1995, he set-up the first computerized (Macintosh) writing lab in the District, computerized all student and administration generated publications and helped to establish one of the most successful AVID Programs in the State of California. It should be noted that in the 1988-89 school year, in cooperation with a colleague in the English Department, the two set a CAP Writing score increase that broke state records (their results have never been replicated).

Leaving RUSD in 1995 to accommodate advancement in his wife’s career, Lowell would spend the next six years working in computer graphics for three firms in San Francisco before returning to Eisenhower High School in 2002. Lowell reluctantly retired from teaching in June 2019.