Tag: skateboarder
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New York mystery 1978
In Skateboard World magazine for December 1978, there’s an article about the scene in New York called, “Skating in the Big Apple” by Mark Diamond and Charles Feldman. In Brooklyn, there was a team called “Performance Skateboard” which met up at Prospect Park, even though it wasn’t an actual skateboard park, and more of just…
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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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Alexis Schempp
Alexis Schempp (Allan) of Pittsburgh, PA has her mom to thank for introducing her to skateboarding in the early 2000s because after finding her mom’s old skateboard at age eight, she became hooked! The following year, when Alexis was nine, her family moved to Oceanside, CA and she was soon recognized for her fearless approach…
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Badass Barefoot skaters
It takes a certain level of confidence to skateboard barefoot, but back in the 1960s and 1970s many preferred it, especially those with a background in surfing. This era was also pre-grip tape, so it was more likely that surf wax or adhesive spray was applied to boards, as described in this article by Jenkem…
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Jodi McDonald
Jodi McDonald from West Palm Beach, Florida began skateboarding in 1986 when she was 14 years old, and according to fellow vert skater Heidi Fitzgerald, “Jodi brought speed, aggression – it was like, beautiful chaos when she skated.” [October 24th Update: Jodi’s battle with breast cancer continues, so please enjoy this post but consider donating…
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Francine Hill
Francine Hill was one of the photographed skateboarders who appeared in Cindy Berryman’s fantastic article, “Let’s hear it for the ladies” which was published in the August 1976 issue of Skateboarder, rallying for support (including equal contest pay) for the growing talent of female riders. Francine is taking a tight turn in a 9-foot deep…
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Elizabeth Nitu
Elizabeth Nitu is from Los Gatos, CA near San Jose, and is likely a familiar face if you were a fan of the Villa Villa Cola video Getting Nowhere Faster (2004) filmed by Lisa Whitaker, sponsored by Element and 411VM. Photos: 2003/2004 Lisa Whitaker Elizabeth was the 9-year-old child prodigy, doted on by the crew.…
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Wendy Bedell
Wendy Bedell (Sprague) was a skateboarder from Hawaii, featured in the February 1978 issue of Skateboard World with a photo of her landing a kickflip at ‘A’ala Park in Honolulu by Don Bradburn. More recently, thanks to her co-worker who decided to Google search Wendy when she mentioned her skateboarding background, Wendy and I connected…
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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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Rebecca Heller
Rebecca Heller co-authored the book, Skater Girl: a girl’s guide to skateboarding with Patty Segovia back in 2007 as an introduction for girls to get comfortable with learning the basics, the lingo, the gear and even some history. YouTube videos were still evolving as the default teaching tool, although there were some very cool efforts…
Womxn Skateboard History 