Friday, August 03, 2007

Huntington Beach Lifeguards and Bud Higgins

Kai Weisser is working on a book about the history of Huntington Beach lifeguards, and needs our help in tracking down additional photos.

Kai writes, "The Arcadia [Publishing] book Huntington Beach Lifeguards will include the City Beach, State Beach (HB & Bolsa), Junior Lifeguards, competition, surfing the pier, and a chapter titled Extra..."

If you know of any historic or significant photos relating to this subject, please contact Kai at ktweisser@aol.com

I posted additional information and photos on the "Greetings From Huntington Beach" blog.

Today's photo comes from this book-in-progress. It's a 1939 shot of Lifeguard Chief Bud Higgins and Lt. Don Winters (who was later a Navy pilot, lost in WWII) on the Department's motorcycle. I'm guessing this was a staged shot, and the "victim" is probably another lifeguard.

Delbert "Bud" Higgins was quite the local hero, and later went on to be Fire Chief and (in his later years) the first City Historian for Huntington Beach. The guidelines he created for city lifeguard operations still serve as a model for lifeguard agencies the world over.

It's also worth noting that Higgins was one of the earliest surfers on the mainland. He learned to surf from Duke Kahanamoku himself in the 1920s and made his own surfboards out of solid redwood.

2 comments:

  1. Let me know if you need any more photos.Bud Higgins was my grandpa.

    Rod Treece

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the offer Rod. I'll email your message to Kai, although he may have already sent everything to the publisher.

    I sent you an email with more details.

    Keep in touch.

    CJ

    10-25-07

    ReplyDelete

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