The surfing world lost a surf legend on January 8th, 2015. Shelley Merrick was a mother, grandmother and dedicated surfer late into her 60s when she passed away from a stroke. Shelley was one of the early Board Members of the Surfrider Foundation, she lobbied for a women's division in the Malibu Surfing Association Classic, and many people admired her grace on the water and land. I looked up to her lifelong dedication to surfing. She would surf Leo Carrillo in the morning and then get dressed in her business attire and head in to work as the Executive Director of the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. When I was in high school, Shelley taught me about artificial reefs and helped me write my senior thesis on the topic. Since then, she gave me career and life advice and we kept in touch via email. We got to see each other in 2010 at the "Girl in the Curl" women's surf conference at Pepperdine University. I'm so lucky to have known her. "Hang Ten and Call me in the Morning", is a great article about Shelley's surfing life published August 27, 2008.
Shelley Merrick surfing Latigo in 1962. Photo from Merrick Family Collection.