Craig Cunningham was born Dec 16, 1937 to Cecil Cunningham and Carmen Peterson in Los Angeles, CA. Cecil made a good living making crowns and dentures for dentists in the Hollywood area. Once while watching Clark Gable in a movie he observed, "I made his crowns." Craig's father bought a second house in Big Bear where he taught Craig to water ski. Craig's father owned a 1967 Plymouth Fury in which he once drove over 100 mph on city streets while Craig was in the car. Craig's mother was Christian Science and his father was Presbyterian.
Craig's fraternal grandfather John Cunningham was from Scotland. He was a skilled carpenter for LA City. He lived into his 90s.
Craig's sister Cheryl was a teacher for a time. She married a man who went to Stanford and became an expert in Atomic Energy and worked for a while at CERN in Switzerland. They had four children. She was bedridden for 3 years and passed at 86.
Craig attended Hamilton High School where he played basketball and tennis. He got a BA in Kinesiology from UCLA and a teaching Credential. He worked for 20 years at Recreational Youth Services for LAUSD. During this time while Craig spoke at a conference attended by Bill Plaster, the coach at UES from 1962 to 1964 He was impressed by Craig and invited him to apply for PE coach at UES. Craig met with Madeline Hunter who liked his teaching skills and invited him to teach at UES. Bill Plaster then taught the upper grades for a couple of years and ended up as Assistant Superintendent for a school district.
Craig married JoAnn in 1982. They met at Bel Air Presbyterian Church. She has two children from a previous marriage.
For many years Craig has been an expert witness in lawsuits dealing with personal injury cases dealing with lack of supervision and dangerous situations on playgrounds for many years. For example a child is hit by a bat while playing baseball. The aide was not watching. Even at 88 years old he often spends 20 hours per week on lawsuits as an expert witness.
Craig owned two Mustangs. The first called Bluest currently has 52K on the engine and the second which he bought in 1992 for 12 K is a 1973 red ragtop pony. Both have wire wheels which are no longer made.
Craig has been president of the Mustang Owners Club of California a number of years and is a major force in the club. There are 250 people in the club. He lives one and a half mile from Balboa Lake.
