FUEL TV Presents the 2nd annual 1st Silver Surfer Award Gary Linden   The California Surf Museum’s “Silver Surfer Award” A lifetime achievement honor, the “Silver Surfer Award” will be presented annually by the California Surf Museum during the California Surf Festival to a surfer who has made significant contributions to the culture and lifestyle of the surfing community and whose life has also inspired others to expand their awareness and continues to set a shining example of a true Silver Surfer. The recipient will be presented with a “Silver Surfer Award” inscribed with their name and year of honor; a perpetual “Silver Surfer Award” with names of the recipients will be housed at the California Surf Museum. Champagne Reception with Photographer The First “Silver Surfer Award” presented to Linden has been a multifaceted part of the surf community for over 40 years and his down-to-earth style has created many fans not only in San Diego but all over the world. Jim Kempton, president of the California Surf Museum will talk about Gary’s friends and wonderful wife and will present him with the award. Author and former editor of Surfer Magazine, Paul Holmes, founder of Transworld Media Larry Balma, and others will highlight Gary’s illustrious life. It is an honor for the California Surf Festival to be able to present Gary Linden with its first “Silver Surfer Award.” “I was born in El Centro (a big desert) on December 11, 1949. Our family moved to San Diego, about three years later. My dad grew up in Hermosa Beach and loved the ocean. We used to go to the beach together on the weekends and bodysurf. Later we got canvas mats, and finally, in 1962, when the Beach Boys were singing “Everybody’s Surfing Now,” I had to give it a try. From that first day, it has been pretty much non-stop. I bought an old balsa board for $20 with my newspaper route money. It needed fixing up, so my dad and I learned to work with resin and fiberglass. I guess that was the start of my surfboard career, as well as the beginning of my fixation with wooden surfboards. When I was 14, and we got to go to the four major islands of Hawaii. The next year, we went to mainland Mexico by bus, our longboards riding in the aisle. I haven’t stopped traveling since. Right around the same time, I became competition director for my surf club, Las Olas, judging, organizing club contests, and doing the ratings. Later, when I joined the world-famous WindanSea Surf Club in La Jolla (at the age of 17), I took it to the next level, organizing the San Diego High School surfing championship. While I was in the club, Skip Fry returned from Australia with an 8-foot Bob McTavish V-bottom surfboard, the first shortboard we’d seen in San Diego, and we were the first to try it out. After trying it, I had to have one. Since no one was making these boards, I managed to acquire a blank; in those days, only the manufacturers could buy them. With my girlfriend’s little brother steadying the opposite side, I shaped my first Sureform. After glassing it in my parent’s garage, it looked pretty good, and all of a sudden, people started ordering boards. At the age of 17, Linden Surfboards was rolling.” —