Michigan, not Minnesota, home to Snurfer

Dozens if not hundreds of children across the United States will write a school paper about snowboarding this school year. Unfortunately some of them may get one basic fact wrong.

The October 2009 edition of Family Fun magazine has a short mention of “Famous Firsts,” a book by Natalie Rompella. The mini-review in the magazine reads, in part:

“When Wendy Poppen was a young child, she wanted to surf in a Minnesota snowstorm. Little did she know that her idea would eventually become an Olympic event: snowboarding.”

The story is about the Snurfer, which evolved into the snowboard.

Minnesota is cold and it does have snowstorms, but when Sherman Poppen came up with the Snurfer, he lived with his family not in Minnesota, but in Michigan. Don’t blame Rompella, though. She got it right.

You can read more about the early history of snowboarding at the Grays on Trays web site.