Inductee Bio
Richard Henry Deese was born on March 1, 1937, in Hawthorne, California. Richard's father was a master carpenter, who taught Richard how to use hand tools and do construction from an early age. He graduated from Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach in 1956. He and his best friends, including Dewey Weber, who was a classmate at Mira Costa High School, surfed in the 1950's at Hermosa and Manhattan Beaches with the South Bay's 1st Street gang. Richard and Dewey learned about surfboard building from Dale Velzy. Richard began to work in both Velzy's shops in the late 50's and learned how to use fiberglass. Richard quickly became an expert builder for the Velzy shop in San Clemente, and he was sent to the Hawaii shop to train new surfboard builders there for the new Velzy shop in Hawaii.
In his high school years, Dewey ruled the roost at Mira Costa High. "We had a group at school that was mostly surfers and we ran the place," Dewey recalled. "The other group was the lowriders. Both groups were very close. They rode their motorcycles and hopped up their cars and we surfed. We came together against all the football players. It worked out great." Like the lowriders, the Mira Costa High surfers had their own dress code: white J.C. Penney t-shirts, v-neck sweaters, white belts and black corduroy pants, angora socks and black and white buck shoes. Remember, this was the mid '50s. Dewey Weber graduated from Mira Costa High in 1956. Dewey's main focus, though, was getting to Hawaii. "Mike Bright had come back and told us about this place called Makaha," Dewey recalled. "So, we went. There were 14 of us living in a two-room Quonset hut at the south end of the bay near Klausmeyers. Boy, I tell ya, that was a blast. We had one car for 14 guys and one ice box -- with little sections taped off inside for each guy. Buzzy Trent and Buffalo Keaulana took me under their wing, adopted me, more or less, and taught me how to spear fish and how to free dive. I'd dive every day, bring in a stringer of fish and trade those guys fish for eggs, butterscotch pudding, my share of the gasoline, my share of the rent." With Dewey that year were Gibby Gibson, Richard Deese, Gene Sedillo, Buddy Dobbs, Lum Edwards, Steve Smith and Bummy Kennedy.
After returning to California, in late 1960, Dewey and Richard found that Velzy's surfboard shops were suffering financially, and the San Clemente shop where they worked was closed. It is not clear to me if they each opened their own shop or if Richard worked out of his parents' garage and maybe in Dewey's shops for the South Bay Surf Shop logo. In any case, Richar owned and operated the South Bay Surf Shop label from 1961 - 1967, where he invented and developed the Wishbone aka Tunnel fin. Due to new OSHA requirements about ventilation when working with fiberglass, Richard moved his shop to Ventura in 1967, where he met and worked with Bill 'Blink' Hubina. Unfortunately, the OSHA rules followed him north, and he had to close his shops. Richard went on to work in carpentry and construction for the rest of his career. Richard was also an avid bowler, pool shark, and deep sea fisherman.
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