Texas Women. Texas Waves. At the Texas Surf Museum.

June 19, 2008 on 10:39 am | In The Latest |

(This is a little late, wish we could have had this up so all of ya’ll could have made it to Corpus to party with us)

Female surfers haven’t always gotten the respect they deserve – neither on Texas shores nor on beaches around the world. Too often, women have been depicted simply as props in surf culture, as bikini chicks sitting on the beach, looking pretty and not much more.

The Texas Surf Museum in Corpus Christi aims to set the record straight, at least where female surfers from the Lone Star State are concerned, with a major new exhibit titled Texas Women. Texas Waves, opening on Friday, June 6, 2008.

Texas women including Tippy Kelley, Julie Polansky, Grace Knowles and Karen MacKay have won more national titles in the annual United States Surfing Championships than have their male counterparts since the contest began in 1959. And competition hasn’t been the only way women have made their marks on the Texas surfing scene.

Kathryn Williamson-Mayfield of Houston (BJ’s mom and spiritual mother to hundeds of grom’s back in the day) established some of the state’s first surf shops in the early 1960s. Mary Goldsmith of Port Aransas spearheaded the successful drive during the late 1990s to legalize surfing next to Horace Caldwell Pier, a prime spot for waves.

Rachel Gore of South Padre Island made headlines in 2004 when she and her husband, Gene, paddled a surfboard the entire 404-mile length of the Texas coast in 19 days to raise money for the Surfrider Foundation Texas Chapter’s Respect the Ocean program, which teaches school children about protecting and preserving the ocean environment.

Texas Women. Texas Waves. will include surfboards, memorabilia, videos and dozens of photos and written profiles related to Texas women surfers of today and yesterday, young and old, from throughout the state.