JERRY PERSON -- A Look Back

The Bluetorch Pro and ShockWave surf games are now history, ending

with some of the biggest waves seen at the Huntington Beach Pier for many

months. This week, we’ll look at another surf contest that was held at

the pier 37 years ago.

This surfing event featured several local lads who would go on to

become surf legends in their own time, including one 16-year-old who went

on to become a top music and singing performer around town.

The surf contest also included a top Hollywood actor, a former sheriff

and several local townspeople. More than 8,000 onlookers crowded our pier

for the two-day event that began Saturday, Sept. 21, 1963. They were

watching history in the making at the fifth annual West Coast Surfboard

Championships.

Pepsi -- that’s right Pepsi, not Coke -- sponsored the event that was

televised by KHJ-TV Channel 9 to the Los Angeles area.

Good waves from a storm during the first part of the week suddenly

disappeared, giving the surfers only shore breaks. Surf legend Jack Haley

did the announcing for the 365 entries that were judged in their

divisions.

When it ended, Little John “L.J.” Richards from Oceanside had taken

first place in the men’s open division. Richards won a wetsuit donated by

Voit Rubber Co.

He was followed closely by Long Beach’s Mickey Munoz in second place

and Bob Patterson of Laguna Beach in third. In fourth place was none

other then Robert August, who would go on the following year to film,

with fellow surfers Bruce Brown and Mike Hynson, the classic surf movie

“The Endless Summer.”

A Surfside lad of 16 by the name of Corky Carroll took first place in

the boys’ under-17 division and won the surfboard paddle race around the

pier.

Bob Lonardo of Huntington Beach won a special trophy in the boys’

15-and-under division.

A statuesque Laguna Beach girl, Candy Calhoun, took first in the

women’s open division. Linda Merrill and Mike Doyle took a trophy in the

mixed tandem division. A 50-year-old Preston Peterson of Santa Monica

took first in the senior division.

But the high point of the event came when Ron Maury introduced the

72-year-old surfing legend and a former sheriff of Honolulu, Duke

Kahanamoku. The crowd went wild.

Maury then introduced that most famous of all Hollywood Tarzans,

Johnny Weissmuller. It was Weissmuller in the Paris Olympics of 1924 who

would go on and break the world swimming record the Duke set in the 1912

Olympics.

Maury introduced many of our local townspeople, including Huntington

Beach Mayor Robert “Bob” Lambert, Chamber of Commerce Secretary Bill

Gallienne, Lifeguard Chief Vince Moorhouse, Recreation Director Norm

Worthy and water polo expert and author Monte Nitzkowski.

There were, of course, a few stolen surfboards and a few brews hoisted

after the event at our local taverns, but all in all this surf contest

was a great event for Huntington Beach.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.