"Linda Benson: the Pace-Setter," by Paul Holmes, ran in the November 2003 issue of Longboard magazine. This version has been slightly shortened and edited.

It's high summer in Southern California, the beach parking lots are jammed and the surf spots packed. Atop the bluffs overlooking Pipes, just south of Swami's in the seaside town of Encinitas, Linda Benson sits in the driver's seat of her comfortably appointed and immaculately clean Ford E-150 surf van and mobile office. Parked at the extreme north end of the State Park, she conducts business on a cell phone she has plugged into the lighter socket. It's a little after 12:00 and the sun is just reaching maximum intensity, sending temperatures soaring into the 80s and promoting a gentle sea breeze that is beginning to ruffle the formerly glassy three-foot surf breaking below.

Benson, whose tanned and fit appearance belies her 59 years, has just finished the daily session of her surf school and is now she returning phone messages—arranging for publicity photos to go out to a magazine, booking more surf lessons, and making plans to attend an upcoming induction ceremony for the Huntington Beach Surf Museum's Walk of Fame. Benson already has her own star on the sidewalk outside Jack's Surf Shop, but she's willing to brave the crowds surrounding the US Open of Surfing megacontest to show support for Marge Calhoun who is being honored, belatedly, this year. Benson is hoping that Calhoun will accept the award in person but she's not overly optimistic about seeing her friend and former contest rival of more than 40 years past. She's spoken with Marge on the phone, but Calhoun says she's unlikely to attend, leaving Benson disappointed but still determined to be there for the occasion.

Calhoun's reluctance to step back into surfing's social and cultural limelight stands in stark contrast to the way in which Benson has lately re-embraced the sport with quiet but intense enthusiasm, attending "legends" and celebrity events, making appearances at pro longboarding tournaments, advising the organizers of the recently formed Women's International Longboard Organization, being profiled in San Diego area newspapers and magazines and in general being highly visible at the hub of longboarding's modern incarnation. "We've had a long ride, a wonderful ride," she says about herself and her contemporaries. "Who would have thought that in our 50s and 60s we would be being asked to do these kinds of things!"

In many respects, Benson's newfound fame shouldn't be a surprise. She was, after all, the standout woman surfer of the late '50s and early '60s, a highly successful competitor, and a pioneer and inspiration for the first wave of women professionals such as Margo Oberg, Lynn Boyer, Jericho Poppler and others. She eclipsed the accomplishments of antecedents like Marge Calhoun, fended off early rivals like Joey Hamasaki and the up-and-coming Joyce Hoffman, and may well have had a surfing career much longer than the 10 years she spent at the pinnacle of women's surfing. Instead, Linda Benson took a job as a flight attendant and embarked on a life journey that might be seen as a 38-year detour from which she has only recently returned. During those almost four decades, Benson's name popped up often in "whatever happened to" jawboning sessions, but while she was no longer in the limelight she actually never stopped surfing—merely made it less of her primary focus. Following her retirement from United Airlines in May this year, though, surfing has once again assumed its rightful place as her vocation.

Linda Benson was born in 1944 and raised in Encinitas when it was merely a dot on the map along California's Highway 101, before the advent of the 1-5 freeway. Her father, a drummer who had played big-band jazz with the likes of the legendary Tommy Dorsey, quit going on the road when his daughter came along and settled into a quieter life running the local gas station and selling cars. The Benson family lived up the hill not far from the beach. "It was a special place to grow up," says Linda of her childhood years. "A country beach town. I feel very lucky to have been born here at that time."

As a girl, Benson says, she loved going to the beach and remembers seeing surfers from an early age. With post-war Californians taking up the sport in steadily growing numbers, and with an elder brother in a beach town family, it was almost inevitable the bug would bite the Bensons. One day when she was around 10 years old her brother and his friends showed up with boards.

"I'd go with [them] to Moonlight Beach," Benson recalls. "Right from the start, I was in awe of surfing. I just thought it was the neatest thing. At first I'd just sit on the beach and watch. But then, if one of them lost their boards, I'd hustle out into the water and push it back out to them as far as I could. Eventually one of them said, 'Hey, do you want to try catching a wave!' From then on, I was a pest."

The boards were all big and heavy, either varnished redwood planks or newfangled balsa waterproofed with fiberglass. There were still relatively few surfboard makers, and with demand growing and boards in short supply, Benson recalls seeing many a sodden log being stripped down, dried out, reshaped and reglassed under the Moonlight Beach lifeguard tower where John Elwell and Tom Keck were on duty.

"Then all of a sudden, around 1956," Benson recalls, "it seemed like a lot of kids started to get into it, and a few girls too, including one of my best friends, Nikki, who later went on to marry John Price of Surfboards Hawaii. Well, Nikki and I just lived for surfing. It was the only thing we could think about. Every morning our parents would take turns driving us to the beach."

Benson soaked up the lore and lifestyle like a sponge and she retells her early experiences with a palpable sense of wonder and affection. "That first year we surfed all through the winter just in our bathing suits. The guys would build fires on the beach so you could warm up between catching waves. Sometimes they'd throw a tire on top and there'd be all this black smoke and the fire department would show up. 'Hey, what are you kids doing down there!' And we d yell back, 'Just staying warm!" And they'd leave us alone." She laughs at the memory, adding "You know that wouldn't happen today."

Out at Swamis that winter, Benson saw Phil Edwards and LJ. Richards surfing for the first time, and their skill and style made a lasting impression. "Phil paddled out. He had on white shorts and a big smile on his face and even just paddling he was so smooth and graceful. His board was perfectly trimmed so that there was barely a ripple as he went by. And that was just his paddling! He was just so good, it was incredible. LJ. was the same way."

Other influential out-of-towners passing by also dropped by Swami's or Moonlight to surf from time to time, creating indelible images in the teenage girl's mind. One of them was surfboard maker Dale Velzy.

"He pulled into the parking lot in his white El Camino with the "Velzy and Jacobs Surfboards" logo painted on the side and it was like the President had arrived," recalls Benson, chuckling at the effect Velzy's visit had on the local crew. Velzy, of course, was a tireless observer of surfers and surfing as part of his business research and his knack for promotions. If little Linda Benson was impressed by seeing Velzy at her home beach, Velzy in return noted that this young girl could really surf. During the next few months, Benson says she got to know Velzy a little bit, chatting with him whenever he showed up. Before long he offered to give her a new board. Just like that, Benson was on the Velzy-Jacobs team—the pioneer elite of the surfboard industry-to-be. "It was a big deal for me just walk into the Velzy shop," Benson remembers. "I loved it—the smell of the resin, guys working on the boards." Her bright blue-gray eyes sparkle at the recollection; an essential rite of passage for gremmies of every generation, right up to this day.

In 1959, Linda Benson turned 15. It was a huge year in her life. By now a skilled surfer despite her tender years, she took part in the first major contest held in California, the West Coast Surfing Championships at Huntington Beach. Local surfer Jack Haley won the men's division, while Benson soared to victory in the women's. The result earned her an invitation to surf in the Makaha International the following winter. The Benson family, however, could hardly afford to send their daughter to Hawaii. She went to Velzy, asking for assistance. Peeling notes off the wad the surfboard maker was famous for carrying in his back pocket, Velzy gave her half the fare and told her he'd also back her play with a new board suitable for the surf she'd likely encounter. Her father was cowed into matching funds. "Velzy made two boards and let me take my pick," recalls Benson. "What was really funny was that when I came back after winning the contest he was really nonchalant about it. I went to his shop and he just looked up and said, 'Now what was that thing you just did!'"

For a teenaged California girl in the late '50s, simply going to Hawaii was a major event. Going there to surf in the sport's most prestigious contest was nothing short of huge. Moonlight Beach lifeguard John Elwell arranged for Benson to be chaperoned by Bob and Betty Driver, and the Californians found digs in the cottages at Kawela Bay on the North Shore. Filmmaker Bud Browne and top surfers L.J. Richards and Mike Doyle, among others, were also ensconced there. "It was a whole little surf colony," says Benson. "I was 15 years old. I was in Hawaii. It was so beautiful. I was in heaven. We had the time of our lives."

Benson surfed Haleiwa, Makaha, Sunset Beach, Laniakea and a spot already named Velzyland after her sponsor and benefactor. Inevitably, Hawaiian winter waves offered challenges, but, it seems, the gutsy youngster met them head-on.

"I rode Waimea Bay one day," says Benson. "It was 15- to 18-feet, not huge, and I didn't catch any of the bigger waves but I took off on the shoulder of one or two. I think the shorebreak was the scariest part—getting out and getting back in. John Severson was out that day and he'd just wiped out on a wave with Fred Van Dyke, who'd broken his board. John took one look at me as I was paddling out and said, 'You're crazy!"'

Benson, of course, was not crazy—merely a gutsy girl with a passion to ride waves and a teenager's sense of being indestructible. Her session at Waimea was the first time a woman had ever surfed there—at least in post-contact Hawaiian history. Not that the Hawaii experience was totally without moments of danger or fear. "I surfed Sunset one day when it was big, almost looking like it might closeout," Benson says. "Everyone had come up from Haleiwa and it was one of those days when it was windy, all over the place, and kind of scary. All of a sudden it got cloudy and dark and it started to rain. Everyone started going in and I could see the cars pulling out of the parking lot. Eventually, I was the only one left out there. Everyone but Bud Browne had gone and I could see his camera lens sticking out from the back of his car with a towel draped over it. I was afraid to move inside because by then it was breaking in the channel. I was scared. All I could think about was the old story of those two guys [Woody Brown and Dickie Cross] who'd been out there when it started to close out and they'd paddled down to Waimea to get in and one of them was never seen again. I was really scared. I just wanted to get in.

"Then finally I saw someone paddling out and I thought, 'Thank God!' It was Ricky Qrigg, and as he got out to where I was I said to him, 'Ricky, help. Help me get in.' So he had me paddle further over and we caught a wave and I went straight to the beach."

Conditions for the Makaha contest that year, however, were much more forgiving—nothing like the big, challenging Point Surf for which the spot is so renowned. In fun head-high foot waves Benson found herself matched in the women's final against a lineup of female surfers that was a who's who of the sport in the late '50s, including Marge Calhoun, (whose picture Benson remembered having seen in the newspaper when she had previously won the event), Robin Grigg (Ricky's sister), Anona Noni (later Mrs. Nappy Napolean and the local favorite to win), Ethel Kukea and Joey Hamasaki. "I surfed well," says Benson, "And the surf was so good and so much fun they almost had to drag me in when the heat ended so I could come up and get my trophy." The 15-year-old Californian goofyfoot had swept the field, set a new standard for women's surfing, and opened the door for the next generation of female surfers. "The Makaha event was a big deal back then—huge," says Benson. "There were big crowds on the beach and on the weekend there were night surfing demos under huge spotlights. It was kind of exciting, but when the light wasn't on you, it was dark out there!" Benson clearly cherishes the memories of her first foray to Hawaii, the spectacular success she enjoyed there, and the many new people she met, including a young Donald Takayama. "He's been a special surfing friend ever since—all through the years," she says.

Altogether, she adds, "It was a dream for any kid. I was very lucky."

Around the same time, in addition to her contest victories at Huntington and Makaha, Benson rode Malibu for the first time. "A big south swell was running, and a couple of older married from down here volunteered to chaperone some of us on a trip up the coast," Benson recollects. "We drove Highway 101 all the way and it took hours to get there, so it was after dark by the time we arrived. We saw a fire on the beach and a bunch of people, so we went down there to find Tubesteak [Terry Tracey] holding court. It was a scene straight out 

 the book, which had just come out and we'd all read." Benson was in awe. "We knew we had something really special. Foam boards had arrived and surfing was just exploding."

Benson found herself at the epicenter of the surfing elite at a time when female surfers were still in the tiniest of minorities. Being young, she was usually chaperoned on surf trips and to attend contests, but even so, she was still often the only girl hanging with the boys. Rather than being harassed or made fun of, as one might assume. Benson says she was always treated well by the guys, who made a special point of looking out for her, keeping their language clean, and telling the rowdier elements to cool it if they looked like they might engage in popular hi-jinks of the time like "mooning." For the most part, she says, "The guys were always like big brothers to me—the camaraderie back then was amazing. Everybody knew each other up and down the coast. We knew the boards they rode and the cars they drove.

"It was a very classy time. The guys wore madras shirts and ivy league pants and we wore Pendleton skirts and matching sweaters. We had some style." And she adds, "I tried to do things right too. I didn't want to be seen as a pushy broad or a whiner. It wasn't the time to be a Gloria Steinem. At the same time, I was a good surfer—better than many of the guys—but I didn't want to flaunt it. I didn't want to irritate anyone."

Benson's contest performances continued to be stellar in the few big events that mattered. At the annual West Coast Championships in Huntington Beach she won again in 1960 and, no doubt because of her growing fame, was hired to be the surfing stunt double for Deborah Walley in 

—a role that Mickey Munoz had filled in the first 

 movie while wearing a blond wig and bikini. The now 16-year-old returned to the Islands for the filming and got a glimpse into the lifestyles of the early jet-set while staying at the illustrious Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki. While there, Benson was chaperoned by Hobie Alter who had begun sponsoring her after Velzy Surfboards was shuttered the year before.

 gig led to more work as a stunt double, notably as a stand-in for Annette Funicello in the beach party films that followed. Hanging with the moviemaking crowd, she met Stevie Wonder and Dick Dale who, on one occasion, hearing that she needed a ride home, drove her all the way from Malibu to Encinitas in his big black Cadillac. "I was rich," she says today, laughing. "When I was doing the beach party films I was making $300 a week, which was a lot of money back then, and I got an extra $100 every time I had to paddle out."

In her hometown, Benson was a celebrity. "Whenever those terrible movies came the La Paloma Theater," she says with amusement, "They'd always put 'Starring Linda Benson' up on the marquee." Benson won the West Coast Championships for the third time in succession in 1961. Not only was she famous, successful in contests, and enjoying the benefits of sponsorship from Hollywood and the surf industry, she had her own skateboard model being produced by Hansen Surfboards—a first in skateboarding history. "I peddled them at hardware stores up and down the coast," she recalls, "by doing demos on the sidewalk outside."

With three West Coast titles to her credit, Benson decided her competitive surfing career had peaked and in 1962 she dropped out to become a contest judge. When she entered the contest again in 1963 she managed only fourth place. New faces were beginning to emerge in women's contests including another standout, Joyce Hoffman. "We were fierce competitors," says Benson. "We were not friends." In fact, she says, women's contest surfing in general was extremely competitive in those days. "There were so few events," she explains. "If you entered one, you really wanted to win."

In 1964, the West Coast Championships were replaced by the United States Surfing Championships. Benson entered—and won. That same year, international surfing took a giant leap forward with the inaugural World Contest, held in Australia, where Benson represented the USA after securing sponsorship for the trip from American International Pictures, who thought it would be good publicity for the beach party films. "It was a fantastic experience because of the Australian hospitality," says Benson,

The contest, of course, was a major event in Australia, with tens of thousands of people turning out to watch. Benson took runner-up in the women's division, losing by just a quarter-point to local surfer Phyllis O'Donnell in the finals. Benson also gave a tandem surfing demonstration with Mike Doyle which was a massive hit with the Aussie spectators. "When we came out of the water they just swarmed us for autographs," says Benson. "They wanted us to sign bits of paper, their tee shirts, their arms, whatever. It was—I don't know how to describe it. It certainly wasn't like that here in the U.S.

Benson says, in retrospect, that she was sorry about not winning the World Contest, that O' Donnell did outsurf her, and that she, Benson, hadn't been as serious about the competition as she should have. That fact was Linda Benson was moving toward a new phase in life.

In 1965, Benson applied to be a flight attendant for United Airlines—about the most glamorous job a young woman could aspire to in the mid-'60s when travel represented the epitome of luxury. "I'd wanted to do that since 7th grade," she says. "I'd always thought how neat it would be to fly around and be paid to go to exotic places." Benson's competitive surfing career was drawing to a close although she continued entering—and winning—selected events. She went to Chicago for training and work experience with United, and 18 months later returned to California to begin flying the trans-Pacific routes— Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and back to California via Hawaii once more. "It was the perfect job for me," she says, "I really worked only 12 days a month." While she was no longer front and center in the surf media, she did not stop surfing. "Hawaii became almost like a second home for me," she explains, referring to the frequent layovers she had in Honolulu. "I kept my board down there at Kuhio, in the board locker, right next to Rabbit's board. All the beach boys kept an eye on it and always looked out for me. I love all those guys. I'd fly in at four in the after, I'd be in the water at 4:30, and I'd surf until dark when I could hear the Tahitian drums starting up for the evening luau at the hotels." It was a pattern that continued for more than 20 years.

Still, Benson was not yet totally through with contest surfing. In 1968 she entered the U.S. Championships and took an unprecedented 5th title—a record for the long-running contest. As organizers put together the American team to compete at the 1968 World Contest in Puerto Rico, Benson, by then 24, was once more a contender. She and Joyce Hoffman (World Champion in '65 and '66) were forced into a one-on-one surfing duel to decide who would go. Benson won the spot but, as things turned out, both women went. Neither of them took the title, however, which was won by young up-and-comer Margo Godfrey. "I kind of blew it," Benson admits. "It was a tough time for me. I wasn't as focused as I should have been. We didn't train in those days or any of that." Plus, surfing was changing. Shortboards were on the scene. "Boards were harder to paddle," Benson continues. "A new era was coming and a lot of us were, I don't know, kinda being left behind. We were getting older. A lot of people got away from it entirely. I just kept flying. I surfed once in a while, but I wasn't exactly into it anymore."

Linda Benson's name—and her incredible total record of more than 20 first-place surfing titles over a 10 year period—began fading into the annals of surf history.

Fast forward 15 years to the mid-'80s. Linda Benson, still with United, has almost completely dropped off surfing's radar. One day, while walking with a friend near her home in Manhattan Beach, she notices a surf contest going on. "My friend said, 'Let's go over and take a look.' And I said 'Oh, I don't know.' But we did, and there's Dewey Weber putting on his longboard contest. And there's Donald Takayama who I hadn't seen in eight or ten years. Well, Donald comes over with a big smile and puts his arm around me and says, 'We're getting the longboard thing going again—and here's your board!' And that's how he brought me along and got me into it again."Benson lights up at the recollection. "It was really wonderful to be back," she says.

Benson would play a significant role in both the longboard resurgence that followed and the explosion of women's surfing that longboards and mid-lengths helped create. Inducted into both the Hall and Walk of Fame in the heart of Huntington Beach's revamped Surf City, she's also been honored at numerous legends events and reunions, and she even returned to Australia for the 30-year anniversary celebration of the 1964 World Contest.

Eight years ago Linda Benson began completing the journey back to her roots when she bought an avocado and flower ranch property just inland from where she grew up surfing at Moonlight Beach. "It's very peaceful, and a great place to relax and have sunset barbecues with friends. On a clear day you can see the ocean," she says, adding: "The move enabled me to surf so much more. I paddled out one day at Pipes and caught one wave and someone yelled, 'Linda, is that you!' And it was Diana Brummett, a local girl here I'd gone to school with. Everyone here has been just great to me, really good friends. It's as though I never left. And so much fun. It's great to be able to paddle out and know everyone."

Benson's homecoming was consolidated last May when she retired from United Airlines and scarcely more than a month later launched a second career as a professional surfer—this time as a teacher—through her Encinitas-based Linda Benson's Surf School. While the premise of the business is to teach girls how to surf, Benson has found her knowledge and instruction being sought out by fathers and sons, husbands and wives, as well as daughters, mothers and even grandmothers. "Surfing today has become much more a family thing," she observes. "Very few of our parents surfed in the '60s. They all hoped that surfing would be something that passed—quickly. Now parents are taking lessons so they can surf with their kids. That's good. That way the parents feel they're not going to lose them. Nobody would have ever dreamed that back in our day."

Neither would the male-dominated world of '60s surfing have ever predicted the current wave of women and girls taking up the sport. Benson attributes this to the sea-change in attitude that has occurred throughout society since those days. "Women are much more fit now," says Benson, illuminating part of the reason for the growth in their surfing. "In the '60s there weren't as many gyms for us. Women didn't run. They didn't lift weights. Sure, we were surfing, but we didn't want muscles or big shoulders. We didn't want to look like the guys. These young ladies today are buff, they're fit. And that enables them to do a tough sport, because that's what surfing is."

To those girls deterred by surfing's steep learning curve and all the hard knocks it entails, Benson says: "Surfing is a million-dollar thrill, but you earn it a nickel at a time. Be patient. Surfing's one of the greatest sports of all time."

[Photos: LeRoy Grannis, Ron Church, John Severson]

"LINDA BENSON: THE PACE-SETTER," BY PAUL HOLMES (2003)

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