‘Social butterfly’ Eva Kilgore, who wrote about Huntington Beach and beyond for the Orange County Register, dies at 67

For decades, Eva Kilgore documented the goings-on around Huntington Beach and environs in her weekly Orange County Register column. But, ever involved in community events, she was far from just an observer.

“Eva was a big-time social butterfly,” said her longtime friend and colleague Curt Seeden. “Everybody knew and loved her.”

Kilgore, 67, died suddenly Tuesday, Feb. 19, her daughter Paige Kilgore announced on social media. Her death came almost exactly one year after that of Lyle Kilgore, her husband of 38 years. The cause of death was not confirmed.

Well-known in her Huntington Harbour neighborhood and beyond, Eva Kilgore seemed to be everywhere at all times. In her final Facebook post, dated Feb. 17, she wrote, “I am so excited to return as a food judge for the annual Taste of Huntington Beach! April 28 at the HB Sports Complex.”

Among her pet projects were the Huntington Harbour Philharmonic and the Kiwanis Club of Fountain Valley. In 2017, she served as the grand marshal for the Huntington Harbour Boat Parade. She also frequented restaurants, nail salons, cat spas, clothing boutiques and other local enterprises and wrote about them in her column.

Her final column appears Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Huntington Beach Wave weekly.

Kilgore grew up in Lakewood and attended Cal State Long Beach with fellow journalism major Seeden. While working as a reporter for Los Angeles radio station KHJ, the then Eva Sharon Ross met the radio station’s news director, Lyle Kilgore.

In an interview with the Register last year, shortly after her husband’s Feb. 22 death, Kilgore remembered her initial skepticism about his purported celebrity connections. When they first started dating, Lyle Kilgore tossed her his phone book as proof – and she spotted the name George Burns. “He said, ‘Well, call him!’” Kilgore recalled. “So I did, and he answered – and I hung up!”

Thanks to Lyle Kilgore’s esteemed radio career, the couple hobnobbed with such world-famous stars as Elvis Presley. But Eva Kilgore was most engaged with luminaries in her own backyard.

“It was fun to gossip with her – she could tell you everything about everybody,” said Seeden, who was Kilgore’s first editor at the Register when she started as a freelance columnist in 1996.

While a “socialite,” Kilgore remained “very humble,” said Seeden’s wife, Lynn Seeden. “She did not like putting on airs.”

Kilgore made it her cause to raise awareness and money for homeless children in Huntington Beach, Lynn Seeden said: “She used her place in life to do so much good.”

Most of all, Lynn Seeden said, she will remember both Eva and Lyle Kilgore for their wit.

“They were a hoot,” she said. “Lyle had such a dry sense of humor, and Eva was so dialed into it. They would banter back and forth like crazy.”