By Bryan Simo, Staff Writer
This year, the skateboarders at River Hill are looking to find a home at the school. River Hill has a small but strong group of skateboarders that are dedicated to their craft and finally want to make a name for themselves.
After the return of students to school from the pandemic, a new community emerged: a community of skateboarders. Starting with a group of students in the class of 2025 who enjoyed skating together, the group immediately blossomed and attracted the attention of other skaters from all grades. One of the pioneers of this movement for a skateboarding club at River Hill is Thomas Li, a junior and a skateboarder of three years. When asked about how he met other skaters at the school, he recounts, “ I just happened to be friends with them and they just happened to skateboard.” He then speculated, “I’m pretty sure I got some of them into skateboarding as well.”
Now, with the group gaining more traction and attracting new skaters faster than ever, a club at the school is “quintessential in growing the skateboarding community,” according to senior Griffin Millstein, a seasoned skater at the school. As Griffin puts it, “there’ve been many skaters who’ve come and gone through the school, but without a solid place for them to consolidate, there really hasn’t been a real community until now,” and this community might just see new heights with their saving grace, Mr. Perraud.
Mr. Perraud is a relatively new teacher at River Hill, with this only being his second year at the school. He began skating in his youth. Inspired by the X-Games and Tony Hawk, he claims, “I always wanted to try skateboarding but never had a skateboard.” Once he finally got his hands on one, he fell in love. Despite his love for the sport, he took a fifteen year hiatus, only getting back into it during quarantine. “I was just bored,” he says, “and I think a lot of people were getting back into those kinds of activities, like things you could do that were active and outside but you could do by yourself, and I was just curious to see what I could still do.”
Since skateboarding is such a big part of Mr. Perraud’s personality, last year, Mrs. Lidgard reached out to him to make a skateboarding club. At that point, “I didn’t start one formally,” he explains, “but a lot of students who do skate came to my room and hung out during Hawktime, and I talked to them about skateboarding.”
When asked about any efforts of potentially starting one this year, Mr. Perraud responds, “Not really,” describing how he hasn’t done much to formalize anything, with the main obstacles being his workload as a senior English teacher during college application season, and the difficulty of starting a club with “an inherently dangerous activity” as he describes it. Despite the obstacles, Mr, Perraud is open to creating a space for skateboarders at the school, hoping to “bring a lot of different people together and form friendships that… wouldn’t form otherwise.”
Whether there’s an official or unofficial club, the skaters at school would be pleased. Veteran skateboarder and senior Daniel Murakami says, “That’s fire–I’d like that,” with Thomas even adding that “any community to start with would be helpful.”
With such a club possibly attracting new skaters or others interested in the sport, Mr. Perraud has this message to any newcomers: “Start slow and start small, and just see if you enjoy it, and if you do, just find a way to do it that’s fun for you.”