"International Surfing Hall of Fame Awards Ceremony," Surfing, August 1966

The Hall of Fame awards ceremony at the Santa Monica Civic was the most impressive event that the sport of surfing has seen to date. It was really great to see guys like Con Colburn, Dave Sweet, “Gordie,” Bob Carbonell, and Bing Copeland setting the style parade in their dapper tuxedos, instead of in their usual attire covered with shaping dust. Bob Carbonell and Con Colburn also lead the procession of out-of-sight vehicles arriving at the Civic. Con showed up in a super customized Ford model T, and Bob acquired the famous Gold Rolls Royce from the Movieland Wax Museum.

The cocktail party at the Cliff House following the awards ceremony was a huge success. The entire restaurant was rented and closed to the public. Invited guests milled in an atmosphere of happy and excited voices, loud music, champagne, and surf stories. (Of course, minors were allowed to attend, but were kept away from alcoholic beverages.) It was quite interesting to move from table to table and talk to people of the caliber of Fletcher Sharp, Dale Velzy, Doc Ball, Mark Martinson, Fred Van Dyke, Dale Davis, Bob Bagley, Jim Freeman, Walt Phillips, Harold Iggy, Mike Hynson, Donald Takayama, Sonny Vardeman, Buzz Smith, Bud Browne, Tom Keck, Walter and Flippy Hoffman, Bob Cooper, John Peck, and Joey Hamasaki.

A great time was had by all, and already plans have begun here at ISM for next year’s balloting, ceremony, and party.

A special thanks to Bruce Brown, Hevs McClelland, Marge Calhoun, Bob Bagley, Dale Davis, Kimo McVay, and Duke Boyd for their help in making the First Annual International Surfing Hall of Fame Awards a giant success.

"Surf Spray," Ron Haworth, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 17, 1966

"Bob Simmons never received the recognition he so richly deserved, and it’s a shame that he isn’t alive and here tonight to accept this honor.”

The words are those of Buzzy Trent, and to many of the audience who sat in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium recently for the First International Surfing Hall of Fame Awards, these words were spoken with a catch and a hoarseness and from the heart. Dale Velzy, moments before, has accepted the award for the late Bob Simmons.

The recent Hall of Fame Awards must be looked upon as the high point of modern-day surfing, and Dick Graham, editor and publisher of International Surfing magazine, has done the sport a tremendous service by conceiving the idea. Surely, the formal affair at the Civic did much to alleviate the long-hair, juvenile delinquent image surfing has borne wrongly in the past.

Attending surfers were well-behaved and no catcalls or stink bombs were in evidence as adverse past publicity might have the uninformed believe.

If Buzzy’s eulogy to the memory of Bob Simmons settled momentary reverence onto the effervescent audience, there was also humor and a touch of Hollywood glamour.

For who would ever have imagined that surfing could produce a night when Greg Noll would step smiling from a limousine, 

 Academy Awards, dressed in a white tux and hold his arms aloft in greeting like an Oscar nominee? Here was their hero, a John Wayne to the gremmies.

Autograph seekers milled around the arriving limousines as Felipe Pomar and other dignitaries rode up. Teenage surfers noticeably uncomfortable in suits and ties with unruly sun-bleached hair, strained on tiptoe for a glimpse.

Inside the auditorium, the crowd felt good. There was an air of "we’ve come of age” that could only be missed by a rank outsider to surfing.

Mickey Dora walked onstage wearing a self-presented medal pinned to his chest. It proclaimed him as the ultimate. Mickey got away with it. The audience laughed. Anyone else would have been severely criticized. There comes a time in our lives to be humble. Mickey Dora might well have passed his few seconds by.

True champions are the result of years of diligent training applied to their chosen sport. Because of this, Hawaii has cause to feel proud of her three surfers selected to the Hall of Fame.

It is indeed doubtful that any three men have more "flying time” in big surf than the Duke, George Downing, and Buzzy Trent. And if big waves typify Hawaii to the rest of the surf-conscious world, then these men represent us ably and honorably.

1966 International Surfing Hall of Fame Awards

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