Winter, summer, spring or fall, there is one outdoor sport that has become a passion for many young people all over the country. That sport is skateboarding.

    And in Pocatello, one of the places that skateboard enthusiasts love to visit is Deckadence Skateboard Shop in Old Town Pocatello.   

    Darin Black, also known as “D’Beau” to his many friends and customers in the skating community, is a skateboarder turned business entrepreneur. He opened Deckadence three years ago in Old Town Pocatello, but has not remained content to simply sell his products. He has become actively involved in city government in order to make skateboarding more fun and more available to young people in the community. As such, he feels he is a liaison between the young people in the skating community and to the population at large.          

    While there is a skateboard area at Ross Park, the facilities are old and difficult for kids to reach. Black would like to see a skateboard park in the Old Town area. He is a member of the Old Town Design Committee and is working on preliminary plans and designs to build skateboarding facilities. He would like to see “skateable art” that combines the best of a city park, structures that are pleasing to look at, sculptural in nature and also sturdy enough to skate on.    

    Black has also been appointed to the Citizen’s Advisory Board for the Pocatello Parks and Recreation Department. He has made it a priority to promote skateboarding and skateboards parks as a boon to both young people who board and to the community at large.

    “By putting skateboard parks in our community, we would benefit in so many ways,” Black said.

    Skating gives kids something to do that would be preferable to other activities that bored or idle kids might get involved in.

    “If we had more skate parks in our community, we would have less kids skating on the streets,” he said. “We could create a place that kids want to go to. When you start to skateboard it gets in your blood, and you really want to get better, and you want to learn to do that new trick.”

    Black’s vision for Deckadence is to make it more than just a successful business. He would also like it to be a gathering place for those who love to skateboard.

    “The shop becomes the central point for the kids to hang out, a kind of hub or network,” he said. “It’s like the brain center for getting a place in town where people can skateboard. One of the things we want to do here is to create that hub.”

    Black is a native of Pocatello and a graduate of Pocatello High School.