Peggy Oki

Peggy Oki was born in America to Japanese parents from Hiroshima, Japan. The only female member of the original legendary Zephyr Competition team of ace skateboarders in the mid-1970's, Peggy took first place in Women's Freestyle in the Del Mar Nationals skateboarding competition in March, 1975. A graduate of Venice High School in Venice, California, Oki studied environmental biology at and received a Bachelor of Arts in Painting from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. (Her paintings deal with nature and usually include either landscapes or seascapes.) Moreover, Peggy has traveled to such places as Fiji, Mexico, Japan, Hawaii, Australia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, South Africa, and New Zealand as both a surfer and as an environmental activist dedicated to protecting whales and preserving the sea. Oki founded the Origami Whales Project to raise awareness about commercial whaling in Japan, Norway, and Iceland in the spring of 2004. In addition, Peggy has worked as an art instructor at Santa Barbara City College. She was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2012.