Photo by Terry Georgia
Winners of the Skate-A-Palooza II Skateboard Design Contest: (Left to right) First Place: Verona Murphy’s “Puppies Rule;” Second Place: Savannah O’Hara’s “Butterflies;” and Third Place: Own Dockery’s “Yo!”

By Terry Georgia
The Surveyor

On Saturday, Aug. 10, three young Berthoud artists were named winners for their creative skateboard designs.

During the Berthoud Recreation Center’s Skate-A-Palooza skateboard competition last April, young visitors had the opportunity to submit their own skateboard designs. Those designs were then posted in the recreation center, where patrons voted on their favorite. The votes were tallied and the top three winning designs were fabricated into professional skateboard decks by Jacob Neal of Broken Bone Skateboards in Berthoud. The finished skateboard decks were presented to the winners by Nic Jones, Berthoud’s Recreation supervisor for Sports and Fitness.

First place went to Verona Murphy, 8, for her design, “Puppies Rule.” Second place was awarded to Savannah O’Hara, 9, for her design, “Butterflies.” And Third place was given to Owen Dockery, 10, for his design, “Yo!”

Both Murphy and O’Hara are aspiring artists. Murphy would like to learn how to skateboard soon. At 10, Dockery estimates he’s already been skateboarding for six to seven years. His parents have a picture of him on a board when he was still young enough to be sporting a pacifier. His years of experience helped him claim first place for his skills in the six to nine age group at Skate-A-Palooza. Now he can add board designer to his list of accomplishments.

Broken Bone skateboard designer and builder, Jacob Neal, was excited to see the kids’ interest in the art of skateboard design. “Skateboard culture is strongly influenced by visual art,” Neal said while talking with the kids about their new boards, ”they go hand in hand. There’s something very cool about designing and riding your own board.”

Dockery and his parents had already ordered an extra board deck with Owen’s design to hang on a wall at home as a pice of art. He’ll definitely be riding the other.

Nic Jones announced that planning for next spring’s Skate-A-Palooza III was already underway. Perhaps this year’s winning boards and their riders will be seen practicing some grinding, ollies and tic tacs at Waggener Farm Park’s skate park in preparation for next year’s competition.