NEW ORLEANS — A 195-foot barge-turned-skate park ended its 1,705-mile, 28-day journey down the Mississippi River with a championship skateboarding competition on the river banks of New Orleans on Sunday night.
The event, dubbed Mississippi Grind and sponsored by Red Bull, has been nearly three years in the making, according to Benji Meyer, who first conceptualized the idea when filming a skateboarding project near the riverside in Minnesota.
“Let’s send a skate park down the Mississippi River,” Meyer said to a friend, half-joking.
The innovative idea gained traction in the coming years. Darin Limvere, one of Meyer’s fellow film makers on the project, described Mississippi Grind’s path to fruition.
“The first time we actually saw the thing we were blown away,” Limvere said. “That idea that we had on a napkin at one point was now a ride.”
Barousse said the skateboarding scene is small in Louisiana when compared to the rest of the country, and he is happy to see it expand.
Melanie Lawrence, a spectator, said she thinks more should be done for Louisiana’s young people.
“New Orleans’ youth need something to do outdoors and skate boarding is a healthy option,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence said teenagers fall through the cracks when it comes to down-time activities and said encouraging participation in skateboarding could help combat the nation’s growing obesity problem.
“They’re too big for swings,” Lawrence said.
 
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Contact Josh Naquin at [email protected]