
{"id":27470,"date":"2012-08-23T09:48:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T13:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=27470"},"modified":"2012-08-23T09:48:24","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T13:48:24","slug":"beloved-crossing-guard-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/08\/23\/beloved-crossing-guard-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Beloved crossing guard dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27471\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27471\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2012\/08\/23\/beloved-crossing-guard-dies\/burnette-color\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27471\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/burnette-color.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"burnette-color\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27471\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/burnette-color.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/burnette-color-113x150.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/burnette-color-84x113.jpg 84w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/burnette-color-75x100.jpg 75w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/burnette-color-345x460.jpg 345w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27471\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Longtime McDougle School crossing guard James Burnette greets students crossing Hillsborough Road in 2008. Burnette, who died last week at UNC Hospitals, will be sorely missed by the community.  Photo by Kirk Ross<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nCARRBORO \u00e2\u20ac\u201c As the school year starts on Monday, members of the McDougle School community will head back to class, but a familiar face won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be there to greet them on their way to school. <\/p>\n<p>James Paul Burnette, beloved longtime crossing guard at McDougle, died last week at UNC Hospitals. He would have been 75 this past Monday. <\/p>\n<p>After retiring from his career as an operating-room technician at UNC Hospitals, Burnette became a crossing guard in 1994. He quickly became known for his on-duty high fives and fist bumps, his greeting to every parent and child who crossed Hillsborough Road safely under his watch.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Each morning, he gave a boost to every child and parent who walked through his crossing to McDougle, then did it again that afternoon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said John Mader, a nearby resident whose children attended McDougle. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And when my son and daughter made their way to Chapel Hill High School and UNC, he was there with a wave for me whether I passed by on a jog or in my car.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What a difference that high-five, a smile and a good heart can make.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Members of the Chappell family said in an email that they will miss Burnette, who always made an effort to know each child and was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fiercely protective of everyone who crossed his path.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There will never be another crossing guard as kind and friendly as James,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said 9-year-old Crosby Chappell.<\/p>\n<p>Parent Becky Laskody said she always looked forward to Burnette\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s high-fives while walking her son to school. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I loved this human contact with a friendly school official,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153His ready willingness to literally connect with every member of the school community inspired hope for this institution which can be depersonalizing in the mad dash to meet government-mandated metrics.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Elisabeth Allore, whose children attend McDougle, noted Burnette\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s across-the-board camaraderie with all members of the community. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel right on the days that he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there, and it certainly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to feel right now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He will be sorely missed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Funeral services were held Sunday at Second Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, and Burnette was buried at Westwood Cemetery in Carrboro. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Members of the McDougle School community will head back to class, but a familiar face won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be there to greet them on their way to school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27476,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27470\/revisions\/27476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}