Student flies in the face of competition

Camp Sherman's Marissa Young is threatening records as a professional competitor in the sport of sandboarding.

Topping her class of girls under 18, the Black Butte School student is the 2006 Sand Master Jam Junior Woman's Champion and the 2006 NSL Rail Jam Junior Woman's Champion.

Young's accomplishments would be substantial for a 30-year-old. In fact, at age 10 she is not even close to being the age of her mentor and sometime coach Josh Tenge who is a 28-year-old champion snowboarder and sandboarder, and Guinness Book of World Records record holder for the longest back flip in sandboarding.

Young and her mother Diana started sandboarding in Florence, Oregon, which has great dunes for the sport. It was there they met Josh Tenge and Lon Beale aka Dr. Dune, director of Sand Master Park and publisher of Sandboard Magazine. Forty acres of pure sand and fun, the world's first sandboard park, Young has sandboarded there for three summers and plans to return again this year.

Radar guns are used at Florence's three events for speed held every summer. Young may have broken the junior women's world speed record. Word is not yet official as they are still waiting for news from one country. Young wasn't sure if her top speed came in at 24.3 or 24.7 and The Nugget wasn't able to determine an official time.

Regardless, the 10-year-old is fast.

"Josh (Tenge) recognized how good she was her very first time on a board," said Diana Young.

Tenge started coaching Young her first year, teaching her not only the tricks of the sport, but how to teach newcomers to sandboard and have fun.

Both mother and daughter enjoy doing the sport together. For Young, the fun has drawn her to the sport more than the competing, which for her is just plain stressful.

Like her coach Josh Tenge, Young has the advantage of being a snowboarder as well as a sandboarder. Because the two techniques are different, not everyone can cross over from one sport to the other. The advantage in doing both is in keeping in shape year-round.

Young has been seen on the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet with her coach Josh Tenge.

Pictures of Marissa on the slopes can be seen in local visitor's guides and sandboarding gear ads.