Words and Light

Tony Hawk is a MAJOR twithead.

The one and only Tony Hawk.

Using the hashtag #THTH (“Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt”?), Hawk has started a Twitter revolution in which he reveals stops on his BirdHouse tour. He tweets scavenger hunt-like clues to locations where more clues are hidden — and then, whoever finds a clue must reveal its contents and, therefore, the location of his next tour stop.

On Friday, Hawk announced he would be in Columbia… on Saturday.

So, of course, every little kid with a skateboard, every college student with a camera and a lot of other people showed up. And I showed up.

Simon Midkiff, Logan Prange and Bubby Rios-Diaz vie for the attention of Tony Hawk's promoters, who were tempting the crowd with a free skateboard.

Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins warms up on the half-pipe before the demos officially start.

Jesse Fritsch on the half-pipe.

I arrived late to the event after I wrapped up another Missourian assignment, so I missed Hawk’s street-skating demo. I wasn’t assigned to cover Hawk, but my editor called as I was walking toward the skate park. Turned out the assigned photographer was 40 minutes away — so, a darned good thing I was already there to make up for him!

Walking into the skate park knowing I was legitimately covering this for a newspaper empowered me to ask the promoter to get me behind the barricade and in front of the nets. A few complications and 20 minutes later, I got access.

Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins stars to wipe out on the half-pipe. Every time she wiped out, a little part of me died. Everyone was rooting for her.

It’s pretty cool how Hawk has embraced social media like Twitter. He tweets like a madman, but he has more than 1.7 million followers — a number that speaks for itself.

The Hawk.

Tony Hawk signs a toilet seat cover for Peter Thelen after skating for a few hours.

Of course, you are very welcome to view more photos.

• I would like to thank the Missourian for helping me come up with a title for this blog post.