Folly Beach leaders on Aug. 9 opened the city’s first public museum, a small, single-exhibit room tucked into the welcome center on Center Street
“It’s important to know your history, and there’s so much history here in Folly Beach,” Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin told the Charleston City Paper. “If you don’t know where you’ve been, you won’t know where you’re going, and you won’t know how you’re going to get there.”
The first of many rotating exhibits is on display now, titled “Surfing on the Edge.” The exhibit explores the origins of surf culture on Folly Beach from the early 1960s to the current charitable organizations that have grown from it over the decades. The museum houses several artifacts and a digital kiosk to view interviews and memories from living legends featured in the exhibit.
Featured highlights include memorabilia, photos from local surf clubs and shops as well as the wooden ironing board that former surf champion Nanci Polk-Weckhorst used as her first surfboard on Folly Beach and memorabilia and photos from local surf clubs and shops in the early days. She grew up in West Ashley and is the first professional surfer to come out of the Palmetto State
Local roots
After Goodwin and members of the Folly Beach Historical Society cut the ribbon on the museum, local surfing legends held a community panel to discuss the history of surfing culture in the city with guests.
Participants included Jack Tripp, former Marine Corps. Leader Dewey Mauldin, Polk-Weckhorst and Foster Folsum, a Folly Beach native and co-author of Surfing in South Carolina.
The four shared stories of surfing in their early teenage years and watching the surf culture grow from a small group of kids to a city-wide phenomenon.
“It was one of those things that kind of grew into itself,” Folsum said. “We had been told you couldn’t ride waves out here, they just weren’t good enough. But we started skimming when I was 14 or 15, and by the time we were 16, we were surfing.”
“Two years later, my dad opened a surf shop,” Mauldin continued. “It was kind of a rolling start. We had sporadic people seeing people surfing out here. Then all of a sudden … we were out there all the time.”
Polk-Weckhorst said she didn’t start surfing until 1965, a little later than the boys at the table. By then, she said, there was already a pretty large community. Her grandmother’s ironing board that she used as her first surfboard is featured in the museum.
“We used to steal it out of the beach house, and my father would push me in the waves,” she said. It didn’t surf real well, but it was something to do.
“We would just try to stand up on anything — a raft, your brother’s back — but after I had enough face-planting on the ironing board, I went out and bought a $40 wonder out at McKevlin’s [Surf Shop].”
That’s when she really fell in love with surfing, she said. That love led her to becoming the first professional surfer out of South Carolina and being inducted into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame.
A spiritual connection
The spiritual side of surfing is often the focal point of Hollywood depictions of the sport, but the panel members said it’s a big part of why some of them have continued surfing for more than six decades.
“I use it as my church,” Polk-Weckhorst said, adding that her love for the ocean and appreciation for nature led her to later majoring in marine biology.
“It’s almost like time stops when you’re riding a wave, sometimes. It’s just an amazing experience,” Folsum added. “I’m 78, and I still try to surf. People say, ‘How can you surf at your age?’ Well, I don’t catch as many waves as I used to catch, but I still catch them. And I’m not thinking I’m 78 when I’m up. I feel exactly like I did when I was 14.”
Folsum and Mauldin actually paddled out in the water the morning before the grand opening of the museum. Mauldin joked that he didn’t do much actual surfing that morning, but just being on the water was enough.
“It’s a soul experience,” he said. “You feel it. It brings back memories. Young men and women need something in their lives that gives them a basis. For me, it was surfing … and it still is. Every time I paddle out, no matter what, that feeling comes back.”
The new museum is part of the Folly Beach community center and library building at 55 Center Street. It is one of the first buildings that travelers see when they cross the bridge onto the island.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
