La Jolla surfer Mike Hynson may be a legend locally, but this summer, his place in surfing history will be set in even bigger stone.
Hynson will be inducted in August onto the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach. The L-shaped display is modeled after the Hollywood Walk of Fame to honor people who have had a significant impact on the surfing community. It currently has 180 granite stones commemorating its inductees embedded at Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway.
“It's a recognition of one's achievement in the sport and culture of surfing," said project director Peter Townend, himself a famed surfer. "It's not just champions. There have been huge influencers in the industry that have never won a championship.”
Hynson, possibly best known for “The Endless Summer” (a 1966 film that follows Hynson and Robert August on a surfing trip around the world), also is being inducted for designing and shaping a new type of board and for his overall surfing prowess.
“It wasn’t one thing he contributed,” Townend said. “It’s many things that make him worthy of inclusion on the Surfing Walk of Fame.”
Hynson could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Walk of Fame inducts six people each year in six categories: Surf Champion, Surf Pioneer, Surf Culture, Local Hero, Woman of the Year and Honor Roll. Every year, a ballot goes out to 150 people to vote on inductees for the first five categories, and the board of directors votes on the Honor Roll inductee.
“Every year, Mike has been second or third in the voting in one category or another,” Townend said. This year, the board chose him for the Honor Roll spot.
“We had to get him in,” Townend said with a laugh. “Mike changed the way we look at surfing and the way we access the waves.”
Before “The Endless Summer,” Townend said, “people didn’t go looking for places to surf. ... Now everyone does it.”
Further, Hynson is credited with designing and shaping a surfboard that enables surfers to ride different parts of a wave, expanding the ways surfers took to the water.
Locally, Hynson was one of the founders of the Windansea Surf Club , along with Chuck Hasley, Bill Caster and Skip Frye. The four wanted to enter a surf contest in Malibu but could do it only as an established organization. So the Windansea club was born.
The club gained nonprofit status in 1965 as it began to take on charity and outreach work. It now holds beach cleanups and the annual Menehune Surf Contest for children.
The Walk of Fame induction ceremony — held in conjunction with the U.S. Open of Surfing, considered California’s biggest surfing event — will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 8. Learn more at surfingwalkoffame.com . ◆
This story originally appeared in La Jolla Light .
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