Skippy Baxter

Lloyd Valdemar "Skippy" Baxter was a Canadian-born American figure skater born December 6, 1919, in Weldon, Saskatchewan. His family moved to Oakland, California, in the late 1920s, and he began skating at nine. By the late 1930s, Baxter had established himself as a competitive force on the West Coast, winning the Pacific Coast senior championship in 1937 and the California senior pair title in 1938. At the 1940 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Cleveland, he earned bronze in men's singles and silver in pairs with Hedy Stenuf, marking the peak of his amateur competitive career.

After turning professional, Baxter pursued ice-show performance rather than continuing amateur competition. He became part of the Hollywood Ice Revue, skating alongside Sonja Henie until the show's close in 1956. During this period, he was documented performing a signature backflip in his "Blue Rhythm" number in 1953. Archival records also show that Baxter and Mary Lou Baxter were teaching in Troy, New York, and Detroit in the 1954–55 season, beginning what would become a sustained coaching practice.

Barxter's professional career was shaped by World War II service in the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, the ski and mountain unit that fought in Italy. He returned to the ice after the war and built a long teaching career in Northern California. For nearly fifty years, he worked in Santa Rosa, becoming closely associated with the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, which opened in 1969 and later became known as Snoopy's Home Ice. His friendship with Charles M. Schulz and involvement in the Santa Rosa skating community linked mid-century professional show-skating practice with generations of recreational and competitive students.

U.S. Figure Skating inducted Baxter into its Hall of Fame in 2003, recognizing a career that spanned competitive medals, theatrical performance and sustained community instruction. He died on December 18, 2012, at age ninety-three. His legacy rests on the integration of three usually separate skating histories: prewar national competition, the theatrical language of the mid-century ice revue, and the everyday transmission of movement craft through decades of local teaching.