By Greg Ellison

(Jan. 20, 2022) Eastern Shore skateboard enthusiast Jay Graybill, who formerly operated Exodus Skate Park on Old Ocean City Boulevard, is donating funds to support skate facilities in Ocean Pines, Ocean City, Salisbury and a proposed site in Berlin.

“It’s strictly out of my pocket,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

From 1999 to 2006, Graybill, along with business partners William Dyer and Ken Waymouth, operated the indoor skate park Exodus .

“We opened an indoor skate park where the Tractor Supply is right now,” he said. “Ever since we’ve shut down, I’ve always wanted to do something with the community to give back.”

The skateboarding trio bonded while coming of age in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Graybill began his infatuation with four-wheeled boards in 1984 and nearly 40 years later remains passionate about the sport.

“We all grew up skating together,” he said.

In the late 1990s, Dyer was the first of the group to relocate to the beach.

“Dyer moved down here first and he wanted us to come down because there was a great skate scene down here already going on,” he said.

In short order, the friends reunited on the shore and embarked upon a new vision.

“There was a great scene down here, but there was no indoor skate park,” he said.

The business partners tapped an old cohort, Keith Consylman, to manage the new business.

“Keith moved down a little before we started Exodus and he was manager,” he said.

Graybill said the resort became a prime spot among skateboarders from the pastime’s earliest days.

“Ocean City was an epicenter,” he said.

Despite announcing the list of donations last week, Graybill is still ascertaining funding levels for Ocean City, while committing to pony up $2,000 for Berlin’s proposed facility and $1,500 for the still expanding Salisbury Skate Park.

“I live in Ocean Pines and I’m literally in the center of all three of them,” he said.

Graybill is waiting to learn more about the proposed re-development of Ocean City’s Downtown Recreation Complex between 3rd and 4th streets, which is home to the Ocean Bowl Skate Park.

“I don’t know anything about their revenue … what comes in and what they can use,” he said.

Regardless of plans for the Ocean City Downtown Recreation Complex, Graybill intends to support the Ocean Bowl.

“I was hoping they would never tear that place down because it’s sacred ground,” he said. “It’s the oldest municipal run skate park in the whole country.”

Graybill estimated hordes of youths have ridden the ramps and curves at the Ocean Bowl Skate Park.

“Every single pro from the ’80s has been to Ocean City,” he said.

The Salisbury Skate Park, which opened in December 2015 and was later expanded in June 2018, is set to launch a final phase of construction.

“They already have two phases of the skate park up and going,” he said.

Graybill said Salisbury officials scheduled a public hearing this week to receive input on design details from residents.

“I’m not sure when they will break ground,” he said. “I was there for the original groundbreaking.”

In a similar spirt to the skate park proposal in Berlin, Graybill is looking to lend backing without strings attached.

“People have been awesome who are involved and I’m not trying to muscle my way in and run the show,” he said. “I’m strictly giving donations from one skateboarder to the skateboard community.”

Along with donations for skate parks in Ocean Pines, Ocean City, Salisbury and future plans in Berlin, Graybill is also hoping to send funding to his hometown Lancaster County Skate Park.

During his youth, which was prior to the skate park being built, Graybill was among a clique of boarders who frequented the Outfitter Ski Shop, which also doubled as a skate retailer.

The dual-purpose business attracted an array of youths to a back parking lot area where a curb was repurposed for maneuvers.

“We did that for hours on end for years and years,” he said. “We ground it down to literally the rebar.”

To Graybill’s amazement, during a recent trip back to Lancaster he unearthed the whittled down curb section hidden in the bushes behind the shop.

“I came back a couple weeks ago and I sawed off the center section of it,” he said. “I’ve got maybe a foot section of the actual curb.”