When members of the Sioux City Skateboard Association lost their good friend Andrew Langin to brain cancer in January 2017, they wanted to do something to honor him. The 40-year-old single father of 13-year-old Sophie was an avid skateboarder, a “bad-ass drummer” and an amazing metal sculptor who had touched so many people’s lives in a good way.
Since the skateboard association’s inception in 1999, Langin had been an essential member of the group formed by local skateboarders to raise funds for concrete skateboard parks in the Midwest. The funds raised help build the concrete skatepark in Sioux City, Iowa.
What better way to remember Langin than to build something as solid as he was, thought association members David Hall and Trevor Osterholt. They set out to create a “skate-able memorial for Andy.”
“We wanted to design and construct a memorial for our brother that he would be stoked about,” says Hall. “So we designed an obstacle that would work for skateboarding and go with the flow of the skatepark.”
They came up with a raised design in the shape of an A and, as a more personal touch, decided to inlay a disconnected black base so from a certain angle people would see a spade. This feature, Hall says, might go unnoticed by the general public but Langin’s friends would get the connection.
“Andy was a big fan of the band Motörhead and after the passing of (bassist, singer and songwriter) Lemmy Kilmister that previous year we thought that would be fitting” as a nod to the band’s hit song “Ace of Spades.”
The concrete was integrally colored with Dark Charcoal from Butterfield Color and 400 pounds of 00 size lime-green glass. And it also contained one ingredient that won’t be found in any other memorial — Andy’s ashes.
All grading, forming and pouring was done with care by members of the Sioux City Skateboard Association. “After the polishing was done, the glass and aggregate glimmered as a beautiful finish,” Hall says. “This project is a tribute to our skateboarding brotherhood and to a one-of-a-kind father, friend and fellow skateboarder.”
Special thanks to these Sioux City companies:
Polishing contractor: Rich Rawson of A&A Industrial Coatings
Excavation and disposal: Justin Emmick of JFE Landscaping
Concrete finish work: MJ Concrete, Sioux City
