If you live in Fayetteville and you haven’t seen our story or the numerous social media posts about the mysterious (well, not mysterious anymore) young skateboarder from 1979, it’s understandable. We just had an election, after all. But I think you’d be in the minority.
Shaunda Shane, now 56, was just 10 years old when late Fayetteville Observer photographer Steve Aldridge shot a black and white image of her, umbrella in hand, atop her skateboard on a rainy January day. It’s a great photo. So great that the legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk was intrigued and posted it to his more than 15 million followers on Instagram and Facebook last weekend.
People were hungry for details. Who is this girl? Wait, do I know her? Does she still live here?
Staff photographer Andrew Craft saw Hawk’s post — he was the one who digitized the image back in 2019 , which is what eventually ended up on Hawk’s social media — and first thing Monday morning, he scoured the microfilm to find it (the image he digitized didn’t have her name written on it).