The Nehalem Valley Historical Society presents this FREE event on Saturday July 21st from 3 to 5 pm.
Come to the historic Pine Grove Community Center to hear Dan R. Matthews present his talk on the History of Surfing the North Oregon Coast. Dan started surfing on the north Oregon coast in 1964 with his brother David.
In that summer they joined the Portland Surf Club, which was organized by Dick Wald and Jerry Hiershe. In 1967 Dan shaped and glassed his first surfboard. By 1968 he joined with Art Spence, Tim Foley and Jerry Harrington to start Tillamook Head Surfboards on a small farm in the Nehalem Valley. Tillamook Head Surfboards moved to the Cannon Beach Junction in the spring of 1969, where a young surfer from Santa Barbara, Bill Barnfield, started working as a sander. In 1970 the shop moved again into Seaside. Dan went to college, earned degrees in physics and English, and became a teacher on the southern Oregon coast. He taught high school and college for seventeen years, but continued to shape boards, which he still does at this time. He also earned a Masters Degree in marine biology, worked in polymer chemistry research, owned a construction company, managed his wife Sharen’s dental practice (not all at the same time). Sharen is also an active surfer. Dan recently wrote a book which was an international bestseller on Amazon.