A walk on familiar ground

Mike Sciacca

Michele Turner has been a fixture on Main Street for most of her 49

years.

As 25-year owner of the Sugar Shack Cafe, a friendly,

family-themed haven for surfers and locals alike, Turner knows just

about everybody who passes through her restaurant’s doors.

Everybody in the surf community knows Turner, too.

“Michele does a lot for the youth involved with the surfing

community,” said Aaron Pai, owner of Huntington Surf and Sport, which

sits just down the street from the Sugar Shack. “She does a lot of

unselfish things for these kids, speaks out at functions and steers

them in the right direction.”

Today at 10 a.m., the lifelong Huntington Beach resident will be

immortalized on Main Street when her name is added to the Honor Roll

at the 2003 Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame ceremony.

The event, which celebrates its 10th anniversary today, will be

held in front of Jack’s Surfboards and includes the induction of six

others into the Surfing Walk of Fame, including Chuck Linnen who has

been named Local Hero for 2003.

“I’m still somewhat speechless,” Turner said of the honor. “I’ve

lived my whole life in Huntington Beach, so this is a thrill. I

thought they were kidding when I first heard about the honor roll.”

Don MacAllister, one of the Walk of Fame’s 10 board of directors,

said the selection of Turner was a natural.

The Honor Roll is the only category chosen by the Walk of Fame

board of directors.

“Michele has probably fed every surfer who has come into town,

sometimes for free of charge, too,” MacAllister said. “She has the

biggest heart in the world. I’m there six days a week for breakfast

and I’ve seen her in action. She was a logical choice for the honor.”

The criteria for the Honor Roll consideration takes into account a

potential recipient’s important contributions to the sport of surfing

and its culture.

In addition to today’s ceremony, a 176-page coffee table book,

filled with numerous photos of Walk of Fame inductees past and

present, will be sold to the public for the first time, MacAllister

said.

A look at the six people who will be inducted today in the

Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame:

SURF PIONEER

Mike Doyle

(*Nominees achieved surfing fame as a respected surfer or pioneer

in the year before major championships. Candidates must be at least

50 years old, or deceased.)

Raised in the South Bay area, Doyle spent his early years with the

influential surf crew known as the 22nd Street Gang.

As a teenager in the 1960s, he began surfing Malibu, but in the

winter of 1959 he traveled with a small group of California surfers

to the North Shore, helping pioneer what has become an

often-taken-for-granted annual migration for surfers.

An apprentice to Dale Velzy and Greg Noll, he began shaping balsa

boards in 1959.

Doyle won his first Ironman competition in San Diego in 1960 and

was a surfer poll winner in 1964.

SURF CHAMPION

Martin Potter

(*Nominees must have held a world championship, world-class event

titles specific to Huntington Beach, or both.)

The native of Durban, South Africa won his first pro contest at

the age of 15, beating fellow countryman Shaun Tomson en route to the

title. He served notice on the pro tour with an epic showing at the

1982 Pipe Masters at 17.

Potter was among the top surfers during the 1980s and his

approach, especially where aerials were concerned, proved to have

heavy influence on the new generation of surfers such as Kelly

Slater, Matt Archbold and Christian Fletcher.

His universal appeal in the surfing community was due to his

radical mix of power and style.

“Pottz” was a wire-to-wire Assn. of Surfing Professionals tour

world championship winner in 1989, winning by the widest margin in

the association’s history.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR

Marge Calhoun

(*A nominee can be any female who meets the qualifications in any

of four categories: surf champion, surfing culture, local hero or

surfing pioneer.)

Calhoun, born in Hollywood, was a competitive swimmer and diver

who had trained for the 1940 Olympic Games that never materialized

due to World War II.

She surfed Topanga Canyon in the 1950s on a surfboard given as

Christmas gift by her husband. From that beginning, Calhoun went on

to become an inspiration to a generation of young women who aspired

to surf despite a chauvinistic 1960s-era surf culture.

Calhoun was in her 30s when she won the 1958 Makaha international

title riding a 10-foot Velzy balsa, a board she still has today.

She was a co-founder of the U.S. Surfing Assn., an influential

surfing organization in the 1960s.

SURF CULTURE

Larry “Flame” Moore, Tom “Y” Morey

(*Inductees are nominated from the arts or industry and must have

helped create and define surfing culture.)

Larry “Flame” Moore

Moore has served as photo editor for Surfing magazine for nearly

three decades. His photographs have graced the cover of the magazine

43 times since 1976.

As editor, he has groomed and mentored some of surfing’s most

celebrated photographers, including Dan Merkel, Aaron Chang, Jeff

Hornbaker, Bob Barbour and Chris Van Lennup.

Moore became an influential pioneer in terms of new surf spots

when he discovered Todos Santos and Isla Natividad, both off the Baja

coast.

His latest exploration came in January 2001 when he researched and

spearheaded a ground-breaking, big-wave assault on the Cortes Bank,

considered to be a notorious open ocean reef, which is 100 miles off

the Southern California coast.

Tom “Y” Morey

While his contributions to surfboard design may go down as some of

the greatest in history of the sport, Morey is credited with hosting

the first professional surfing contest: the 1965 Tom Morey

Invitational Nose Riding Championships, held at C-Street in Ventura,

was won by Corky Carroll.

He partnered with Mike Doyle in the 1970s to create Morey/Doyle

soft boards, the world’s first rigid, soft-skinned surfboards and

will forever be remembered as the creator of one of the most popular

surfing devices invented -- the Morey boogie board.

LOCAL HERO

Chuck Linnen

(*Nominees must have lived in Huntington Beach for at least 10

years, graduated from the Huntington Beach Union High School

District, been a finalist in the surf champion category, contributed

to Huntington surfing culture, been a surfing pioneer in the city or

a past champion at the annual Huntington Beach City Championships.)

Linnen, who rode his first wave back in 1954 on a Hobie, is still

a successful competitive surfer.

He competed in his first U.S. Championships in 1959, held in his

hometown of Huntington Beach. He was a men’s finalist at the 1958

Oceanside Invitational, a finalist at the 1961 world contest held at

Makaha, competed at the 1964 world contest in Peru and was runner-up

at the Malibu Masters event in 1973.

Linnen was among the first wave of California surfers to travel to

the North Shore in the early 1960s.

Linnen, a high school teacher in Irvine, retired from teaching in

2002.