Ryan Barron may have moved to Vancouver, but in many ways, he never left the skateboarding community in Windsor-Essex behind.
Many in the local skateboarding community are still coming to terms with his death in a hit and run crash on the west coast last month, so they're dedicating a bi-annual competition in Windsor's Atkinson Park in his memory.
Rob Bondy, a volunteer with the Essex County Skateboarding Facebook group, says Barron's death has had an impact on fellow skateboarding enthusiasts. In some ways, he says it feels like Barron never left the region.
"He just recently moved out to take employment out there," he says. "Because of the presence of social media, there was still his presence within the community."
A tree will also be planted and a plaque placed in his honour in Atkinson Park on May 21.
"He touched a lot of people, and just the natural tendency was to want to come forward and spend time together and to be able to remember the kind of things that people shared with Ryan in both music and skateboarding," says Bondy.
Barron was also a member of the local thrash-metal band Days Fade.
Barron was skateboarding with another man during the early morning hours of April 17 when he was hit by an older Mitsubishi model car. Police in Vancouver have found the vehicle they believe was involved, but they still haven't found the driver.
