Tag: Skateboard History
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Stefanie Thomas
Stefanie Thomas was a competitive street skater in the early 2000s. She was originally from Satellite Beach, Florida but moved to Long Beach, CA with her roommate, another ripper named Jayme Erickson. Her sponsors included woman-owned company Rookie, Stereo, Etnies, Destructo, Accel, Bones, and Westside skateshop. She had a smooth, confident style with plenty of…
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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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Aina Maria Oliver
Mallorca (Majorca), Spain is a stunning island in the Mediterranean, and turns out there was a female skateboarder named Aina Maria Oliver (Campins) who would skate the local park called Tramuntana hosted by the town Santa Ponça in the municipality of Calvià, built in 1970. I’ve got a Facebook match, so hoping for some updates…
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Michelle Matta
Michelle Matta (Overin) of Canoga Park near Los Angeles had a flurry of activity in November 1977 when she appeared in both Skateboard World as well as a 6-page feature in Wild World of Skateboarding magazine at age 14. Michelle was a graceful Californian freestyle skater, riding for Maxwell and Pepsi, and while there’s emphasis…
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SkateGirl
Following in the footsteps of Tara Cooper, who produced one of the earliest documentaries on women in skateboarding, a 30-minute film called Live and Let Ride (1999) and AKA: Girl Skater (2002) featuring the Gallaz team on a tour of Australia, Susanne Tabata stepped up with one beast of a documentary. In 2006, Tabata directed…
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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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Laura Thornhill-Caswell
An archive on the history of women skaters wouldn’t be complete without Laura Thornhill (Caswell) with her massive list of contest wins. Her legacy is very much tied to the 1970s, and the photos of her taken by the legendary photographer Warren Bolster are iconic, among many others. When I tell people I’m writing about…
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Bristol Girls Team
When the first UK National Championships was hosted at Crystal Palace in London (originally planned for July but delayed until August 10th, 1977 due to rain) there was no category for women and the female skaters from Bristol were not impressed. In the Evening News special report that was printed in September 1977 it was…
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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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Colorado 1970s Slalom
From 1975-1978, there was a thriving skateboarding scene in Colorado primarily focused on slalom racing in the Rocky Mountains, and it included a crew of women. These skateboarders were celebrated in the August 1978 issue of The National Skateboard Review, with a photo of Barb Hellberg, Janice “Berger” Rumberger, Kathy Ruh, Lisa Wilson, Cindy Langhill…
Womxn Skateboard History 