S IGNA L T R IBU N E Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
VOL. XXXIX NO. 1
December 30, 2016
A ‘Hill’ of a lot of history
HB native researches SoCal history to inform and tell stories.
Revamping sex ed
LB’s Health Dept. partners with local college for new approach to preventing STDs.
Denny Cristales Editorial Assistant
CJ Dablo
Most people wouldn’t have guessed that Long Beach was home to its very own Loch Ness Monster known as Clemente Clam or that Signal Hill was the site of the Cucumber Wars, but informing others of obscure details of a life once lived here in the Southern California area is precisely the role Claudine Burnett has filled for decades. Burnett, 68, a Huntington Beach native and self-proclaimed research archaeologist, has a vested interest in studying Southern California’s history and informing others about it. Her books and blogs delve into the backstory of many cities– and, naturally, this would include cities such as Signal Hill and Long Beach. “It’s very rewarding to know that people read what I put out there, the history that I put out there,” Burnett said. “That’s my reward. I don’t need any money or anything like that.” She is a publisher of many books: most recently Died in Long Beach: Cemetery Tales, stories of those who died and are buried in Long Beach; and two Haunted Long Beach publications, a collection of ghostly lore in the city. Her most recent blogging site focuses on Signal Hill– historicalsignalhill.blogspot.com– and dates back to August, detailing historic figures such as “Kid Mexico,” a boxer and businessman, and Henry Clay Dillon, an early settler, who were native to the area. Her work centers around uncovering forgotten details from the past. “I just love doing what I do,” she said, “because it’s like being a detective.” Burnett is a member of various historical organizations, including the Historical Society of Long Beach and Long Beach Heritage Museum. She has a bachelor’s degree in history from UC Irvine, a master’s in informational science from UCLA and a master’s in pub-
Staff Writer
Claudine Burnett is a Huntington Beach resident and self-proclaimed research archaeologist who studies cities in Southern California– including Signal Hill and Long Beach– and informs the public through her blogs and published works about their history. Pictured is Burnett with her cat, Amador, and a collection of her published books.
lic administration from CSULB. Burnett aspired to be a history professor during her school years, but she said she grew up in a time when there weren’t a lot of career opportunities for women. She instead chose to work at the school library at UC Irvine– which eventually developed her interest in becoming a librarian at Long Beach Public Library (LBPL), her first and last job. “Being a librarian,” she said, “you sort of learn something new every day with the questions that people ask you.” As her work continued, she soon became head of the Literature
and History Department at LBPL, where she primarily assisted in putting together the Long Beach Index, a database of city information. She retired early from full-time work in 2004 and remained at the library in a part-time and on-call capacity until she left entirely a little under two years ago. She said she has used the free time to focus on her writing and continuing her city research. Burnett gathers information by reading through old newspapers every day. She uses these publications as a primary source and relies see BURNETT page 10
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Photos courtesy Claudine Burnett
Died in Long Beach: Cemetery Tales by Claudine Burnett, which was released in June, explores the stories of those who died and are buried in Long Beach. The deceased include politicians, city founders, visitors, influenza victims, Civil War veterans, accident victims, doctors and undertakers, among others, per the book’s description.
There’s a downside to modern attitudes about sex– a little bit of knowledge that there are treatments for the scary infections out there could mean that people aren’t thinking too hard about preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the first place. According to a Long Beach city health department spokesman, that might explain why there is a spike in the number of STDs in Long Beach. The City of Long Beach’s Department of Health and Human Services has announced a new partnership with Designmatters, a program with the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, which has been commissioned to generate new ideas to reach out to the community to address the issue. Kelly Colopy, who serves as the director of the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, explained that rates of STDs are now increasing in Long Beach. In an email to the Signal Tribune, she noted that the City has seen cases of chlamydia reach a 47-percent increase from 2013-2015. Colopy also noted that “the largest increases in rates per 100,000 between 20132014 [are] 43 percent for women over age 45 and men over 35 (63 percent for ages 35-44 and 34 percent for males over age 45).” Gonorrhea has also seen an increase of 115 percent from 2013 to 2015 in the city. The highest rates are among males between the ages of 20 to 29. Syphilis cases have also seen a 97-percent increase from 2013 to 2015. Colopy said that the highest rates were among males between the ages of 25 and 44, but there were few cases of syphilis in women. “The new HIV-positive tests have remained fairly constant,” Colopy said of the figures in Long Beach, “however our rates are higher than the rest of LA County and the state.
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