Author: Natalie Porter
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Calhoun Sisters
Robin and Candy Calhoun were the daughters of surf, swim, and dive legend Marge Calhoun, who was the first female world champion surfer when she won the Makaha International competition on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in 1958. Marge began surfing after having her daughters and was not your typical 1950s housewife. Photo: Sisters Robin and…
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Marie-France Gravel
Marie-France was an Indigenous skateboarder who took up skateboarding in her early thirties as a single mom in Montréal and was part of the original Skirtboarders crew. She had begun skateboarding in 1994 but had to put her life on hold to care for her daughter Arielle, who was born paralyzed and wheelchair-bound with cerebral…
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Canon “Bunny” Price
By the mid-to-late 1970s the skateboarding contest circuit in the U.S., particularly in California, was becoming well established and Canon “Bunny” Price was part of the scene. Canon explained that the nickname came about because “I was always jumping off loading docks behind the Torrance supermarkets,” and it seemed to stick as her contest results…
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Lynne Grosse
Lynne Grosse from Adelaide, Australia was given a nickname – “the underdog from Down Under” after she turned up at the Magic Mountain Masters Contest in Valencia, California in May 1976 and won the freestyle event! She had never been outside of southern Australia before being invited to the U.S. and was only 15 years…
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Saecha Clarke
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Saecha Clarke proved to be the leading female street skater, among a small but elite crew. She grew up in Huntington Beach, CA and the local High School was a destination skateboarding spot, so she would skate there with whoever was hanging out. Saecha shared in Jenkem Volume…
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Kim Cespedes
Kim Cespedes started surfing in sixth grade at Imperial Beach in San Diego and lived in Hawaii for a few years before re-locating to Northern California at the end of Junior High. In a 2018 article for Vogue magazine, she explained that “Surfing really is my first love. It’s what made me a great skateboarder”—and…
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C’naan Omer
The Women’s Street Competition at Vancouver’s annual Slam City Jam in 2000 was intense. This was the third year the contest had offered categories in which women could compete. The favorites to win were obviously Elissa Steamer and Jaime Reyes, but C’naan Omer at age 15, a relatively unknown skater took first place. I remembered…
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KZ Zapata
Flipping through old Thrasher magazines I spotted two mystery photos of a skater named KZ Zapata. In April 1986, a photo of her was included in an article by Bonnie Blouin called “Sugar and Spice…?” alongside Stephanie Person, April Hoffman, Babs Fahrney, and Michelle Sanderson. The caption said she was a 19-year-old student at UCSB…
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Colleen Boyd Turner
Colleen Boyd Turner is a fine addition to the Skateboarding Hall of Fame (2021), and as her Instagram account proves, she’s still very active in her seventies! I highly recommend checking out her page, as it is a wealth of skateboarding history and an inspiration for womxn skaters, especially those with grandma status. Colleen shared…
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Thalia Zelnik
Thalia Zelnik grew up in in the West Village of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and when I stumbled upon a photo of her online, which was also published in Thrasher in the February 1987 issue, and a few other issues, I had to reach out. Thanks to social media, we made a…
Womxn Skateboard History 