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Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

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advertising and surfing

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angle

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Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Resolute pro surfer and organizer from La Jolla, California; professional world champion in 1982, and president of the Women's Professional Surfing Association from 1982 to 1986. Born Debbie Melville in 1953 in Corpus Christi, Texas, the daughter of a navy pilot, she spent her early years living on or near a series of naval bases around the country. At 13 she moved with her family to La Jolla, and soon took up surfing.

By 1971, Melville was one of California's best female surfers, winning two of the Western Surfing Association's elite AAAA events, and placing third in the United States Surfing Championships; the following year she was runner-up in the U.S. Championships, and placed fifth in the World Championships. The women's pro world tour debuted in 1977, and Melville finished the year ranked eighth. She married real estate developer Louis Beacham in 1979.

After three desultory years on the world tour, Beacham opened the 1982 season with a win at Bells Beach, Australia—her first and only world tour victory—and placed highly enough in the remaining four events to take the championship. Beacham used a functional, straight-backed stance, and rode best in larger surf. By 1983, she was facing a group of hot young teenage surfers—including Kim Mearig and Frieda Zamba from the U.S., as well as Australians Jodie Cooper and Pam Burridge—and dropped to fourth in the rankings. The following year she finished sixth, and retired from full-time world tour competition. In 1987 Beacham competed on the America-only PSAA tour, and at the end of the 14-event season won the championship.

Beacham's focus had by then already shifted to organizing and promoting women's surfing. In 1977 she'd been a founding member of the Golden Girls, a short-lived group of six Californians remembered primarily for their color-coordinated wetsuits. In 1982, Beacham became president of the Women's Professional Surfing—an organization founded in 1979, but at that point not yet activated—and put together a five-contest pro circuit as an alternative to the world tour. She served from 1983 to 1992 as the women's representative to the Association of Surfing Professionals. In 1994 Beacham coproduced 

, a beautifully photographed documentary about women's surfing.

 Magazine Readers Poll Awards, and from 1985 to 1991 she worked in 

In 2011 Beacham was inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach.

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