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November 6, 2009

'Grandma Bobbie' still loves roller skating

Kennedy volunteer ready to roll at 77

By Tanner Kent

MANKATO — Most students at Kennedy Elementary know her as Grandma Bobbie.

The one who, every so often, visits the classroom to help with reading and writing. The one who always has an extra ear, or a little special attention. The one whose grandmotherly sensibilities always seem to put youngsters at ease.

As Kennedy physical education teacher Sharon Patterson put it, “She really gives her heart to our school.”

But few know the Bobbie Seberson who, in her younger days, was zipping around Washington, D.C., roller rinks with a hot pair of wheels and a satin miniskirt.

“I don’t skate as well as I used to,” she admits. “But I still enjoy coming out with the kids.”

A volunteer at Kennedy since 2005, Seberson participates in the Foster Grandparent program. Typically, her work is in the classroom.

But every two years, when Patterson rents four-wheel rollers for a schoolwide unit on skating, Seberson can’t help but lace ’em up again.

Now 77 years old, Seberson has owned the same pair of milk-white skates for more than 60 years. All the original hardware is still intact, including the wooden wheels, and Seberson said they spin just as fine as they first time they hit a floor.

Born in Washington, D.C., Seberson cut her teeth at Riverside Stadium, a 30,000-square foot behemoth that served as something of an icon during the rollerskating heyday of the 1940s. Located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood near the Potomac River, Seberson said she rarely missed an opportunity to get on the floor.

“We went skating every weekend,” she said.

With only a handful of rinks left in Minnesota — and none near Mankato — roller skates were long ago replaced by rollerblades, skateboards and scooters. Many students in Patterson’s classes have never put on a pair of skates, let alone taken them for a spin.

So, despite a touch of rheumatoid arthritis and dealing with a gymnasium floor that is much slicker than the old-school rinks she’s used to, Seberson said she enjoys the opportunity to pass on the activity that meant so much to her as a youth.

Miniskirt not included, of course.

“That skirt,” Seberson said, recalling the red-trimmed number made by her own mother, “was really something.”

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