Kenny McDowell

Kenny remembers reading Skateboarder Magazines and seeing photos of Stacey Peralta, which turned him on to skateboarding. “I started skating when I was 12 in 1976, and my board went everywhere I did. But when I started working having family etc. my skateboarding fell to the wayside. I rediscovered my love when I met my old skating pals in 2014 aged 50 and fell in love again with the sport, and since I have tried to skate every day in some form. I have started to build a collection of various new boards. I still have my original 1980 Powell Peralta Alan “Ollie” Gelfand Tank that I have lovingly restored and skated on.” Now some 44 years later he has a few mentors that he would like to thank like, Tony Gale, Rippple Tetu, Mike Osterman and Toshiaki Fujii.

After University, Kenny became a teacher and is now a full-time lecture at a local college as well as a part-time gym instructor. Besides freestyle skating, he is also into park, street, longboarding, and mountain boarding with his huskies, something like dog sledding which can be quite scary.

Besides skateboarding, Kenny loves fantasy football, soccer and has been quite successful in the past in national bodybuilding contests. He also plays a mean guitar, but badly . . . very badly.