I hope all the moms, aunts, and caregivers had an awesome day today, especially everyone who raised funds at the 20th Annual Mighty Mama Skate-o-Rama, which was launched by Barb Odanaka, and organized by Patti McGee‘s daughter, Hailey Villa this year! One of the best responses to a skateboard history post is when I see a comment like, “That’s my mom!” and I get to write back and say, “Your mom is a badass!” There have been a few of those and they give me such joy. It’s cool to learn about supportive moms who encouraged their daughters to skate, became their kid’s photographer / filmer, or app ..read more

Joanna Field is from Pacific Palisades and was a skateboarder who worked at Marina Del Rey skatepark back in the late 1970s. Photo: James Takakura Joanna was good friends with all the regulars, including Christian Hosoi, Jay Adams, among others. She even used her creative talent to hand-draw a fun Christmas card (left) for the locals at MDR, which was appreciated and reciprocated. Fellow skater, Denise Danielson recalled skating and competing with Joanna, recognizing that she was someone pushing the boundaries for girls riding pools and bowls at that time. There’s even footage by Dennis ..read more

Child prodigy skateboarders are fascinating, especially today in this highly visible realm of competition leading up to the Olympics. Back in the 1960s, since skateboarding was essentially branded a child’s toy, the majority of skaters were kids, while in the 1970s most of the sponsored pros were teenagers. There’s several names of youngsters that appear in contest results like Beth Fishman, Bonnie Votaw, Canon “Bunny” Price, Gina Esperanza (Esparza?), Jaime Luster, Jennifer Dimon, Kim Kinsley, and Sunshine Lee, that I’ve had some luck gleaning a backstory, but there’s so many more who remain ..read more

Sally Affleck (Felice) of Australia was a vert and ramp skater starting out in the late 1980s, consistently holding her own throughout the 1990s and beyond. In North America, you might have unknowingly seen her within Thrasher in the February 1995 issue that contained a six-page collage of female skaters in the “Girls Who Skate” article, chock full of letters, rants and photos. Unfortunately, the article failed to clearly highlight the skaters’ names, but Sally was in the mix. There’s a cool interview of Sally circa 1989 for “SK8N,” which was an afternoon TV show in Australia, where she share ..read more

It’s been an exciting week with everything happening at once! First up, an article that I wrote for Adjacency Bias which focuses on skateboarding in the NorthWest, was published online. It was fun to really zero in on a specific region and trace the history of women skaters with meaningful connections to Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. I ended up featuring Gail Yarbrough, Denise Danielson, Stephanie Férnandez, Denise Frohlick, Anita Tessensohn, Leaf Trienen, Lisa Jak Wietzke, the Frumpies, Cindy Gorset, and Skate Like a Girl, trying to offer up a snippet of history from each decade ..read more

Kerry Cooper (Germain) was a 1970s skater who is mostly under the radar, but her name occasionally appeared in contest results, starting back in 1976. At the Ventura 2nd Annual Skateboard Championships, Kerry placed 2nd in freestyle behind Laura Thornhill for Girls 11-14, ahead of Tracy Alaway, Bonnie Kaplan, and Gloria Blanchard. Contests were still in their infancy, and this video gives a sense of the fun and chaos: Kerry followed up a few months later with a win at the Thousand Oaks Contest, sponsored by the Aquanetics Surf Shop, ahead of Becky Martinez, Kym Milburn, and Lynnette Fraas. Th ..read more

I had a minor set-back in my momentum with this project, due to an unexpected visit to the hospital. On Valentine’s Day, after a 3-week battle with COVID, I was excited that some winter sunshine would allow me to go for a skate session. I really wanted to get out there since I was about to travel to the Slow Impact event in Arizona, and felt it was a good idea to get some skating in. The thing with skateboarding in the winter is that, even with sunshine there’s usually sections that are hidden in shadow for months and covered with a thin sheen of barely visible ice. Not only did I wipe-out on ..read more

The Frumpies were a punk band that formed in 1992 out of Olympia, WA who also happened to have skateboarding and Riot Grrrl connections. According to Wikipedia, the original members were Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren (who all played in Bikini Kill) and Molly Neuman of Bratmobile, with the addition in 1993 of bassist Michelle Mae from the bands Weird War and Make-Up. When The Frumpies were featured in the July 1994 issue of Thrasher, they took the opportunity to express their views on gender barriers in skating and punk music. Olympia had banned skateboarding, “but the Frumpies ska ..read more

Janet Church (Atkins) from Anaheim, CA was documented by her little brother, Dave Church (RIP), who was also an active skateboarder, carving the Fish Bowl in 1977, which is such a stylish and iconic photo. Janet was sponsored by Hobie at the time, rocking her Vans shoes and Hang-Ten socks, and I would love to learn more about her. Photo: Dave Church The Fish Bowl in Anaheim was a pool off a small house on Lincoln Avenue and considered a tough pool to skate since it was so tight. There was a feature in the blog, Blue Tile Obsession on September 16, 2013, to memorialize the beloved Fish Bowl af ..read more

Armpit zine was the brainchild of Erika Dubé, a Quebecois skateboarder who had spent significant time in California, getting to know the crew behind the San Diego zine, Villa Villa Cola. Back in Montréal, Quebec, Erika determined that the local crew of female skateboarders, who would soon become known as The Skirtboarders in 2002, needed their own zine. Making a zine would also be fun project during the cold, bleak winter after the indoor skatepark, the Tazmahal was torn down in 2001, in preparation for a new city library, with no alternative to skate. Three issues of Armpit were produced ..read more