Category: Profile
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Peggy Walden
Peggy Walden of Marshfield, Wisconsin, began skateboarding in 1986 and was age 15 when she was featured in an interview for the February 1991 issue of the female-focused skateboarding zine Equal Time (pp 10-16), which was edited by JoAnn Gillespie, who took over from Lynn Kramer. Peggy’s part in SK8HERS I am so grateful for…
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Franzi Stolz
Franziska “Franzi” Stolz of Switzerland was introduced to skateboarding in 1995 and a few years later she gained access to a mini-ramp before becoming a competitive vert skater in the early 2000s, while also enjoying bowl and street. At this time, Franzi was a novelty since there were so few vert skaters in Switzerland, let…
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Pam Kenneally
In the August 1977 issue of Skateboard World magazine, Pam Kenneally received a “New Faces” feature because she had been cast in the role of “Randi” for the upcoming movie Skateboard: The Movie (dir. George Gage, 1978), a kind of side-kick skateboarding girlfriend of Richard Van der Wyk, who played “Jason Maddox.” It was noted…
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Karen Hegmann
Today we’re celebrating Canada Day, so it’s the perfect time to acknowledge Karen Hegmann and the fantastic article she wrote for the magazine Concrete Wave (Holiday issue, vol. 7 no. 3) back in 2008, edited by Michael Brooke called “Canadian Contest Memories.” Photos: Karen Hegmann practising in her driveway in Ottawa, 1977 Karen wrote: “In…
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Rebecca Griffiths
In 1978, a maze-like concrete skatepark was opened in Chester, UK by Geoffrey Blythin called the “Inner City Truckers Skateboard Park” on Sealand Road, on the former site of the city’s Royalty Theatre. According to a news article by Ian Callister called “What would Marie Lloyd have made of kick-flips?”, there was one young girl…
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Brigitta Dittmann
If you live in Europe, especially Germany, you’ll be well aware of the iconic skateboarding company, Titus Skateboards which is a family business based in Münster. You can read about the company history on their website and their evolution from starting a small shop importing skateboard products, producing a popular magazine, followed by a sponsored…
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Check it Out magazine
In the mid-1990s, a group of Brazilian girls came together with a unique vision that would evolve into the publication Check it Out, which would have a profound effect on women skaters internationally. Photo: the cover of the very first zine from 1995 next to the creator, Liza grinding a mini-ramp in 1999 It all…
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Isabelle Fried
With Mother’s Day approaching, I was reminded of Isabelle Fried (Caudle) who received some media attention in the early 2000s for her ability to juggle her love of skateboarding with raising a family and being a high school math teacher. Photo: Isabelle was featured in an advert for the female-focused skateboarding magazine called Push edited…
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Jill Viggiani
In the early 2000s, Jill Viggiani was a regular at the Talent indoor skatepark in Burlington, Vermont and had been vetted by members of the Burton snowboarding team as having potential for being sponsored by Emily Oliver’s skateboard company, Cherry Skateboards (2003-2009) which was a female-focused enterprise. Emily explained that she had connections at Burton…
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Beatriz Saens
Skateboarding in Mexico in the late 1970s was gaining in popularity among youth, with skateparks opening and companies like Pepsi sponsoring a local team, including a girl named Beatriz Saens. I had heard about Beatriz because Stephanie Fernández, who was the first Mexican girl’s National champion in 1979, mentioned skating with her. The two girls…
Womxn Skateboard History 