Category: 1980s
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Gale Springer
Gale Springer (Chorpash) grew up near Venice Beach, and was a skateboarder in the late 1970s and early 1980s from age 12 to 19. She enjoyed competing in bowl, pool, and ramp. Gale and her twin brother, Johnny Springer were also Gale Webb’s little cousins, and became part of her early demonstration team around Southern…
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Deirdre Devine
Deirdre “Dee Dee” Devine was a freestyle skater in the 1980s who lived in Los Angeles as well as Arizona. According to her friend, legendary street skater Anita Tessensohn, Deirdre was sponsored by Airwalk and Powell, as they were on the same team together. In the photo below from the 1987 “Camp Bones” Powell Peralta…
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Amy Paul
Back in the 1980s, when a female skater heard rumour of another girl who skated, they were destined to meet! This was the situation for KZ Zapata, author of the zine Push, Push, then Go! when she first met Amy Paul in San Francisco, at a famous spot called “The Dish” in Hunter’s Point which…
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Pattie Hoffman
Pattie Hoffman received her induction into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2018 for her skills, contest results, and contributions to the scene which began back in the 1970s and peaked in the early 1980s. Pattie was born in Pennsylvania but moved west to California with her family, where she attended high school in the…
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Leaf Treinen
Leaf Treinen was originally from Hawaii before growing up in Eugene, Oregon where she became a factory-sponsored skateboarder in the late 1980s / early 1990s. In March of 1986, nearing the end of 8th Grade, Leaf began skateboarding and was aware of the local Willamette Dammitt contest, which took place for the first time on…
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G.B. Jones
G.B. Jones is an artist who collaborated on the queer punk zine called J.D.’s (AKA Juvenile Delinquents / James Dean / J.D. Salinger / Just Desserts diner / Jack Daniels / Joy Division) with Bruce LaBruce and The New Lavender Panthers out of Toronto, Canada from 1985-1991. In the zine, they cultivated the queercore movement…
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Equal Time Mystery Skaters
In the late 1980s, with the skateboarding industry promoting itself as a domain for men and boys, assuming that there was no point in marketing to girls and women, the zine Equal Time (1989 – 1992) by Lynn Kramer and then JoAnn Gillespie, was especially important. The zines were filled with letters, stories, drawings, rants,…
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Diane (Veerman) Desiderio
Diane (Veerman) Desiderio was a competitive freestyle skateboarder who was among very few female professionals in the 1980s. She embraced the era with big hair, big earrings, and work-out gear as a whole look, and would often perform in tandem with her husband, Primo. In July of 1983, the NSA Paramount contest results in Los…
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Debbie Bragg
Auckland, New Zealand in 1978 opened up a kickass skatepark called Skatopia in the Manukau suburb, which was sponsored by Coca Cola. It emulated the park plans from Skatopia in the U.S. Sadly, it was demolished in 1982 but it was a training grounds for many Kiwi skaters while it lasted. Here’s a promo for…
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Kim Adrian
While interviewing skateboarder Kim Adrian it occurred to me that I was speaking to a true “skater’s skater” – someone who skated for the love of it, committed to the actual doing of skateboarding versus self-promotion. I also believe that she should be on everyone’s radar because based on the photos that were shared, Kim…
Womxn Skateboard History 