Between 25-year-old Spencer Hawkins and 21-year-old Landon Luschei, the two Oak Harbor residents are just one year shy of 30 years of skateboarding experience.

To say that these guys simply enjoy skating might be something of an understatement. They’ve been rolling around Oak Harbor since they were kids. When they aren’t eating, sleeping or working, they’re skating.

So when the opportunity to buy Gizmo’s Board Shop from their old boss came up earlier this year, they jumped at the chance. Its dismal returns and grungy old carpets didn’t matter because the way they saw it, they were buying more than just an old skate shop. They were preserving an anchor for what many skaters say is more a way of life than a sport.

“It’s really given the skateboarding community a place to establish itself,” Hawkins said. “Without a shop, it would really fall apart.”

Skating emerged in California sometime in the 1950s. While it has waxed and waned in popularity over the years, from the 1970s fad of pool skating to the rise of skating gods such as Tony Hawk, it’s been a pastime in Oak Harbor for decades, even if not everyone knew about it.

But it really gathered steam when Terrill Simecki opened Gizmo’s doors in 2002. The shop not only served as a place to get gear and clothes, sparing skaters from a drive to stores in Burlington, but it also served as a place to congregate for skaters like Shawn Chisholm. The 20-year-old Oak Harbor residents rides on the shop’s team, and has been coming in regularly for years.

“When it’s raining, I’m usually here a couple hours a day,” he said.

Hawkins and Luschei weren’t about to let that go, even though the only business experience either of them have is from working in the shop. Both were Gizmo’s employees for several years before they purchased the store.

“We never took any classes or anything,” Luschei said. “We just dove right in.”

And they haven’t done too badly either. Using some of the income from their other jobs — both work at least one other job to help pay the bills — they completely revamped the shop from the grungy carpets up. The new floors, freshly painted walls and new sign are making a difference, drawing back the crowds, but the shop’s annual events have no doubt also made a large impact.

Continuing the store’s tradition, they held two skate contests this summer, each of which had about 30 participants in two divisions, at the Oak Harbor Skatepark on SE Jerome Street this summer. They also hosted a team of about 10 professional skaters who were touring skate parks across the country. The event was a huge success, with as many as 300 people coming from as far away as Kent, Wash.

“People came from all over Washington to watch it,” Luschei said. “It was pretty insane.”

They did everything right, even acquiring a permit from the city, but the event seemed to go largely unnoticed in Oak Harbor. Even senior Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce officials said they had no idea such a large event that drew people from across the state had taken place in the city.

That may be in large part because the young owners have ditched traditional forms of advertising, relying instead on business drummed up by events and word of mouth in the skateboarding community.

While the day-to-day operations of the shop are nothing new, learning to pay taxes and the store’s bills has been something of a “check to the real world.” Yet neither Luschei or Hawkins said owning a skate shop feels like a job. When you’re doing what you love, it just doesn’t seem like work.

“It’s kind of a labor of love,” Hawkins said. “We just didn’t want to see this place go under.”