Eugene Graves served as director of the band and chorus after the passing of Lyle Bardo. A notable international musical director, Graves is known throughout the San Francisco Bay Area musical community.
For 10 years, he was Castro Valley High’s band director, developing a successful instrumental music program that included concert, jazz, and marching bands and an orchestra. He created what was considered a model example of a successful high school music program, and the concert band performed at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The school’s jazz band placed second in a national competition under his direction and was invited to perform on the Dick Clark Show. Claude Figeroid shared that Mr. Graves was one of the original teachers of the Fine Arts Workshop and was “essentially the only assistant conductor that Lyle would ever let conduct.”