Thrasher Magazine founder dies

[mr_j]

`Thrasher' skateboarding magazine founder dies during bike ride
Associated Press
WOODSIDE, Calif. - Fausto Vitello, the founding publisher of Thrasher
magazine, a monthly must-read for skateboarding enthusiasts, has died.
He was 59.

Vitello died Saturday after suffering an apparent heart attack while
bike riding in Woodside with friends.

Vitello and a friend founded Thrasher in 1981, as skateboarding was
enjoying a rebirth as a write-your-own-rules street sport. He ran the
publication out of an office at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San
Francisco.

"You don't expect anything like this. He rode his bike like crazy. He
seemed to be in good shape," his wife, Gwynn Vitello, said by telephone
Monday. "You're never prepared for this, but at least he went out doing
something he loved and he was with his best friend."

Vitello was born in Buenos Aires and moved to San Francisco with his
family at age 9. He was raised in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and
picked up English by listening to San Francisco Giants games on the
radio, according to his son, Tony Vitello.

When skateboarding took a dip in popularity, Fausto Vitello fought hard
to save it, his son said.

"He was skateboarding's saving grace. When the industry was in the
gutter, he gave it mouth-to-mouth. When corporate types tried to step,
he remained independent," Tony Vitello said in a statement posted at
Thrasher's Web site.

Vitello also founded the Independent Trucks company, a popular
manufacturer of skateboard trucks, or axles.

In addition to his wife, Vitello is survived by his, son, Tony, and
daughter, Sally, all of Hillsborough; his sister, Lidia, of Chicago;
his mother, Aurora, of San Francisco, and his niece Maria, also of San
Francisco.

Services will be private, but a public celebration of his life was
planned for a later date in San Francisco.