Barbara Logan - Skateboarding Matriarch Dies at 79

Barbara Logan was force behind Logan Earth Ski Skateboards

OCEANSIDE -- Barbara Logan, a mother of four children, who ran a popular North County-based skateboarding company, died Saturday, her son Brian said.

Logan, 79, was known among early skateboarders as "Mother Earth Ski." She lived in Oceanside at the time of her death.

Logan had fought breast cancer for three years, but stayed clear of hospitals for nearly the entire time, her family said.

"She was very tough," Brian Logan said Monday. "Even hospice said, 'Man, we've never met anyone like her.' "

Logan steered her three sons and daughter toward skateboarding and served as the bookkeeper and administrator of the family business.

The Logan Earth Ski brand of solid oak skateboards was a top-seller in the 1970s, when the advent of urethane wheels catapulted skateboarding's popularity as a competitive sport .

During that period, her son Bruce won freestyle skateboarding competitions by performing such moves as a quarter-mile-long nose wheelie at 40 mph. Earlier, as a boy, Bruce nailed the steel wheels of roller skates to a board and performed what he called "sidewalk surfing" on the hills of Hawthorne.

Years later, Brian and Bruce Logan produced the first Logan Earth Ski skateboards in the yard of the family's Leucadia home. The company moved to Solana Beach where, at one point, it produced nearly 5,000 boards a week.

While Bruce and brother Brad won contests and appeared on magazine covers, Brian and Barbara Logan worked behind the scenes.

"Throughout the industry, everyone liked her so much because they felt she was like one of them," Brian Logan said. "They didn't look at her like someone's mom, they looked at her as a friend."

Logan's survivors include three sons, Brian, of Vista; Bruce, of Carlsbad; and Brad, of Oceanside; a daughter, Robin Logan, of Palm Desert and four grandchildren.

The family is planning private memorial services Dec. 1 in Oceanside.

From the North County Times.