PASSINGS: Chris Hawk

Chris Hawk

Surfers’ Hall of Fame inductee

Chris Hawk, 58, a surfer and board shaper who was inducted last month into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, died of cancer Oct. 23 at his home in San Clemente, said his former wife, Kathy Hawk Margerum.

Hawk had long been considered for the Hall of Fame, which usually has its ceremony in July, but his induction was moved up because of his illness, said Aaron Pai, founder of the Surfers’ Hall of Fame.

“He had been on our list for some time,” Pai said. “The guy was a legend, one of the best surfers in town.”

He called last month’s induction “kind of like saying goodbye.”

Hawk said in the Orange County Register that the ceremony was “the most honorable moment of my life.”

Christopher Lee Hawk was born Feb. 16, 1951, in Maywood. His brothers, Tom and Sam, also were surfers.

Pai said Hawk “became a master shaper,” carving foam or wood into the shape of a surfboard.

“In the ‘80s, he was the guy the locals wanted their boards made by,” Pat Lien, manager of a Huntington Beach surfboard shop, told the Huntington Beach Independent.

“You were kind of somebody if you had his board in the water.”

-- times staff and wire reports news.obits@latimes.com