Category: 1980s

  • Liz Bevington

    Liz Bevington

    Liz Bevington (RIP) was renowned and beloved as an eccentric Venice Beach local nicknamed “Skateboard Mama,” with a passion for skateboarding and kite skating. Liz was born in Germany and began skateboarding the boardwalk at age 52 in 1976. According to an article called “Widow rides the Boardwalk” (Associated Press) from August 1995, she loved…

  • SkateBettys Alaska

    SkateBettys Alaska

    Did you know that there was a crew of women skaters in Anchorage, Alaska in the 1980s simply called SkateBettys?! I didn’t either until a fantastic librarian who works at the Seattle Public Library reached out and shared the glorious news and some awesome scans of Warning fanzine (“Alaska’s only alternative music publication”). Photo: Skate…

  • Cyndy Pendergast

    Cyndy Pendergast

    Cyndy Pendergast was a confident skater in the Mid-West in the 1970s and 1980s and is listed as a “notable member” of the Turf skateboard park on a Wikipedia page. Her name is included along with a host of male skaters, and the legendary Pattie Hoffman. The Turf, (aka “Surfin’ Turf”) was in Greenfield, Wisconsin…

  • Karen Trimble

    Karen Trimble

    Karen Trimble of San Marcos, CA was a competitive freestyle skateboarder in the mid-1980s along with her brothers John and Terry. She was mentioned in passing within Terry’s Freestyle zine called GTurn and he published a photo of her practising kickflips in the November 1987 issue (Vol. 1 No. 2). She was featured in a…

  • Leigh Parkin

    Leigh Parkin

    Leigh Parkin (Blake) was a Del Mar Skate Ranch local who began skateboarding in the 1970s and competed strongly in the early 1980s. In an email, Leigh shared that, “I was first introduced to skateboarding from an older brother, we would skate at the middle school and the curbs by our house, I was probably…

  • Stephanie Person

    Stephanie Person

    Stephanie Person is the first Black female professional skateboarder and her contributions throughout the 1980s are legendary. Skateboarding has always appealed to youth regardless of race or gender (see: Cheryl Thornton) but the barriers facing women & non-binary skaters of color to embrace sport and subculture are incomparable (see: Ramdasha Bikceem). Photo: Stepanie’s board says…

  • Vicky Voughn

    Vicky Voughn

    Vicky Voughn is currently a mystery, possibly spelled “Vicki.” All I know is that she appeared in April 1989 to compete in the mini-ramp contest in Tempe, Arizona and was included in Lynn Kramer’s zine Equal Time (Vol. 1, No 3). Lynn reported that, “Vicky showed up in yet another uncommon place, using the whole…

  • Caia Koopman

    Caia Koopman

    Caia Koopman, who is a renowned artist living in San Diego, was born and raised in California and was skating during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A photo of Caia skateboarding Derby Park appeared in the zine Equal Time (Vol 1. No. 3) in 1989, created by Lynn Kramer. Caia also designed the cover…

  • Lisa Forman

    Lisa Forman

    Lisa Forman was a solid skateboarder in both transition and slalom, and further proof that there were some amazing female skaters during the 1980s. The earliest photo I could find of Lisa was from the June 11, 1980 issue of Skat’n News newsletter, competing in slalom against Cara-Beth Burnside. Early contest results show that Lisa…

  • JoAnn Gillespie

    JoAnn Gillespie

    JoAnn Gillespie, AKA Rawkmom, is given props in the book Skater Girl: a girls’ guide to skateboarding (2007) by Patty Segovia and Rebecca Heller for her role in taking on the Women’s Skateboard Network in 1991, which had been established by Lynn Kramer in 1989 through the ‘zine Equal Time and had grown to some…