Best birthday ever: Meet the woman who found Tony Hawk's skateboard at Houston airport

HOUSTON – Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk kicked off one heck of a scavenger hunt Tuesday in Houston.

Hawk tweeted a picture of one of his skateboards propped against a post with one of the sculptures on JFK Boulevard near George Bush Intercontinental Airport in the background.

“I just left my skateboard kind (of) close to Houston airport,” Hawk wrote in the tweet. “Finders keepers if you can figure out where this is.”

In Hawk’s tweet, he wrote to "please reply with the hashtag on the grip tape" and the race was on.

 

Naturally, fans were clamoring to get to the spot, which most Houstonians would easily recognize. Others from around the world asked how much it would cost for them to get to Houston in a hurry.

According to officials at the airport, the board was snatched up within minutes of Hawk’s tweet.
It turns out that the woman who found it, Melissa Riggs, is celebrating her birthday.

Riggs, who works at the airport, said she was scrolling through messages of birthday wishes on social when her friend tagged her in a post about the hidden treasure. She rushed out to the spot she recognized, the cellphone lot, and found it.

 

Riggs said she was stunned as she held the board in her hands.

“I was like there is no way, no way...I am sure everybody that was in this parking lot thought I was insane, but that’s okay haha” exclaimed Riggs.

“This is the best birthday present I could even ever want,” Riggs said in a video she posted on her Facebook page. “I tried skateboarding on it. I looked like a complete idiot, but that doesn’t matter.” 

Riggs doesn’t skateboard, but now she plans to learn.

Hawk tweeted around 8:20 a.m. Tuesday, Riggs found the board at 8:50 a.m. Dozens of other fans showed up minutes later.

“(I got) lots of thumbs up, lots of 'your lucky.' It was meant to be, it was really meant to be. This was pretty cool,” said Riggs.  “This will be in my bed tonight."

VIDEO: Riggs talks about finding skateboard


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