DATE: Friday, August 22, 1997               TAG: 9708220816

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   80 lines

SURFERS RIDE WAVES OF GOODWILL BEACH PARTY AIDS CHILDREN CAMP, UNDERPRIVILEGED.

Picture this: The waves are swelling chest high. The sky is blue. The breeze is up. You catch a fat one right where it crumbles and make it look easy to the five judges on shore. Paddle back out and, as luck would have it, you do it again, one beautiful swell after another.

For the surfers at the East Coast Surfing Championships, hope springs eternal that the perfect wave will come along, and sometimes in Virginia Beach, hope is put to the test.

For the 35th year, the nation's oldest sanctioned surf competition takes over the south beach in a celebration of sport, fun, heritage and friendship, to say nothing of the surfer's eternal prayer for decent waves. The beach blast began Thursday and continues through Sunday.

The city is not exactly known for great year-round waves, and to the unfamiliar it may come as a surprise that the competition is held at all. More than once the show has sagged for lack of anything decent to ride.

But that's not the point. There's more to this annual love affair with beach life than surfing. As much as anything, the ECSC is a fund-raiser for the Virginia Beach chapter of the Jaycees, which this year hopes to raise $35,000 for charity.

Myron Nahra, a member of the Virginia Beach Jaycees and president of its East Coast Surfing Championship Foundation, said the amount of money raised varies yearly according to weather conditions.

``Last year, we only made about $5,000,'' he said. ``We had a terrible thunderstorm move in with lightning and we had to clear the beach. We lost seven hours of sales time.''

This year, with decent weather forecast, the largest gathering of surfers in recent memory - including competitors from Hawaii, California, Florida and Texas - and decent waves to ride promise to bring people out by the thousands this weekend.

Most of the money generated comes from sales of T-shirts and beer, Nahra said. To help defray costs of putting on the show, the ECSC relies on a squad of volunteers that works with corporate sponsors to make the show happen. Some volunteers work almost all year planning various parts of the competition, he said.

Nahra said the proceeds from the championships are used to pay for the Jaycees' annual Kids-to-Camp project, which involves sending about 75 mentally handicapped children to camp outside Roanoke for a week.

There is also the first Citizen Award, Outstanding Young Citizen Award, and a popular Christmas Shopping Tour for the underprivileged.

``Last year we took 50 kids on a small shopping spree just before Christmas,'' Nahra said. ``We try to stay as focused locally as possible because that's where we can have the greatest impact.

``And we put a portion of the proceeds directly into the organization. We need to have reserves to keep the contest intact each year. But I don't get paid anything for this.''

The only people who do get paid are the winners of the competition, which will be awarded $57,500 in prizes.

One winner, however, was named before the wave action even began.

For the fifth year, the Jaycees awarded the $1,500 Dusty Hinnant-Hugh Kitchin Memorial Scholarship to a local youth. This year's winner is Ben Shoemaker, an 18-year-old graduate of Salem High School.

Shoemaker, who earned a 4.1 grade point average, will attend the College of William and Mary as a James Monroe Scholar, the highest academic distinction given to the school's incoming freshmen.

Not content to hit the books at night, Shoemaker is also a competitor in the ECSC, where he placed 5th on Thursday in the preliminaries for men's short board competition. It wasn't enough to advance him to a higher level of competition but it didn't do anything to dim his spirits.

``The ECSC is bigger than ever this year,'' he said. ``The pros are so good this year. And the waves are good, too. They're a lot better than in years past. A lot of times there aren't any waves at all for the ECSC.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Steve Letourneau, a 15-year veteran of the East Coast Surfing

Championships, shows his son Dru, 6, how to wax a board Thursday.

Graphic

Schedule

For complete copy, see microfilm

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