An East Coast surfing icon died on Tuesday. He was 86 years old.
Pete Smith sparked surf culture in Virginia Beach as we know it today, opening the first surf shop in the city and kicking off the Virginia Beach Surf Carnival with a group of friends, which is now the oldest continually ran surfing competition in the world.
In 1962, close friends and surfers including Smith, Bob Holland and Butch Maloney of Virginia Beach travelled to Gilgo Beach, New York for the first East Coast Surfing Championships, according to Smith’s East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame profile…