Skateboarders seek acceptance in Mason community

Kaiya Lakes | The Chronicle

In Mason, there are so many different activities, clubs and groups, with a wide variety of people, ages and talent levels. Sports communities like football, basketball and dance are recognized not only throughout Mason High School (MHS) but the city of Mason as a whole. 

When many people think about Mason, they think about how many baseball diamonds inhabit Mason, or how many neighborhoods reside on golf courses. What many people don’t think about is how uncommon it is to spot a group of skateboarders around Mason, or a nice skatepark that’s not built on the slanted edge of the very back of a parking lot.

Mason Community Center assistant director, Haleigh White, said that the city’s plans for a skatepark fell through about a decade ago – they originally had a proposal to invest $500,000 into making one, but the council decided there were other projects of higher priority. 

Eventually, their committee found used skate materials in another area and relocated them to Heritage Oak Park. However, White stated that the skatepark is not likely to stay after the renovation plans for the park are finalized.

MHS junior and avid skateboarder Charlie Duncan said the reason Mason has not been able to acquire a quality skatepark is due to the lack of appeal from the citizens. Duncan said he wonders if it is due to a lack of desire or a lack of opportunity.

“Not enough people are interested in a skatepark because there’s not enough people actively committed,” Duncan said, “But people aren’t committed because we have no common ground for them to learn on, like a skatepark. It’s full circle.”

Duncan said that while many feel there is no reason skateboarding should get the same recognition as the major sports in our community, he believes skating is something that caters to a group of people who may dislike the structure of common sports – the guidelines and theschedules – but enjoy the exercise and physical challenge. 

“Mason needs a skatepark in order to influence the people who don’t do traditional sports to get out of the house,” Duncan said. “A lot of kids I know go to work, they go to school, and that’s it, but no one wants to start something they can’t do locally, especially not for fun.”

From Middletown to Dayton, most skaters in Mason reported traveling as far as two hours just to find a good skatepark. MHS senior and small business owner Max Makarenko said he goes all the way to Kentucky on a weekly basis.

“I can make it work because I have a car,” Makarenko said, “But the amount of kids under the age of 16 on social media who want to skate but can’t drive in order to learn how is crazy. They don’t have cars or other ways to get 40 minutes away just to learn. At that point, they don’t even think it’s worth it.”

Makarenko, owner of the small skate business Pop N’ Slide, said he hoped his business might gain traction within Mason, and inspire young skaters to push for better representation in the community. 

“I really hope Mason will consider creating a skatepark or a designated skate area sometime in the future,” Makarenko said, “I can really see the skate community growing around here. With the right environment, skateboarders could generate a lot of business for Mason.”

The skate community is not as small as some may think – there are plenty of skateboarders who live here in Mason; however, they operate very independently. MHS junior Grayson Adkins decided to create an Instagram page about a year ago in order to bring all the skaters of Mason together and to give them a place to feel heard and represented.

Adkins said that MHS should make a better effort towards being inclusive in their extracurriculars and activities towards skateboarders. 

“[A club] would be a really good way for the people who currently skate to show it,” Adkins said. “[It would also be good for] for people who want to try [skating] to be able to do that.”

In a conversation about how separated people within a community can be if there’s nothing drawing them together, Adkins said that the fact that there is no common place to skateboard in Mason does exactly that for skateboarders, hence the rise of social media making Instagram an adequate virtual area for them to communicate. 

“I hoped that other skaters could connect with each other through my page,” Adkins said. “Posting skate clips and information about small businesses like Max’s is really all about building connections and representation within Mason.”

Makarenko’s small business is what he said he wishes will be the start of many in Mason. He said he hopes that his entrepreneurship inspires other skaters in and around Mason – whether that be to start their own business, to try and learn how to skate, to join the fight for skate representation or to just keep doing what they are doing.

Makarenko said that despite the obvious obstacles, he believes that with enough people on board and the right headspace, skaters can convince the city of Mason to build a skatepark.

“Skating really gives you the mindset that you can do anything, no matter how many times you hit the pavement,” Makarenko said.