Zachary Roberts and Corey Keller were teenage skateboarders who lived in Talent, Oregon. In February 2007 they died -- not in some impossible skateboard stunt, but on a road trip to go snowboarding.

Elementary school teacher Cheryl Lashley "had a dream," according to Kevin Christman, a local sculptor, "about a skateboard on a loop, flying skyward." Cheryl hired Kevin, on behalf of friends and family of the deceased teens, and on October 20 his sculpture, "Heaven is a Half-Pipe," was unveiled at the entrance to Talent's skate park. It's the first sculpture in town and the first skateboard sculpture anywhere, as far as Christman knows.

The memorial stands nine feet tall and weighs almost a ton. A swirly spiral of stainless steel, which reminds us (and probably only us) of Max Nordeen's petrified leech, is topped by a stylized steel skateboard pointing heavenward. Christman originally wanted the skateboard to be made of steel that would rust, but the city council vetoed the idea as too messy (it would be kind of depressing, too), so Christman instead gave the skateboard a coating that only LOOKS like rust. The council was also leery of the size of the monument, but Christman attached a skateboard to the end of a nine-foot pole and took the council outside to show them that it wasn't too big -- and the council agreed.

Christman told us that the stainless steel swirl "seemed to have a mind of its own" when he worked it, so he cropped it short of where he had originally intended, "and it turned out to be a far better sculpture than my original drawings."

"It's like the metal was talking to me," he told us.

Cheryl Lashley, the schoolteacher, told the Medford Mail Tribune what she thought of the monument: "If one person sees this, makes good decisions, and does something incredible with their life, it will be worth it."

[10/28/2007]