Patti McGee, whose thrill-seeking activities as a teenager included surfing off the coast of San Diego and skateboarding on the city’s streets, and who ultimately became skating’s first female national champion, died on Oct. 16 at her home in Brea, Calif., in northern Orange County. She was 79.

Her daughter, Hailey Villa, also a skateboarder, said the cause was complications of a stroke.

“It’s like riding a surfboard on the sidewalk,” Ms. McGee told The Daily News of New York in 1965, when asked to explain the joy of skateboarding. “Or skiing down a slope without snow. It’s excitement. It’s kicks. It’s fun.”

Ms. McGee began surfing in 1958 and started skateboarding four years later. It didn’t take long for her to become deft enough, after a few events, to win the women’s division of the first National Skateboard Championships in Santa Monica, in December 1964.

Soon after her victory, she signed a one-year, $250-a-month deal to promote skateboards made by Hobie. The deal made her a professional, which ended her competitive career, and she became, however briefly, a national figure.

Traveling around the United States, she demonstrated her skills at department stores like Macy’s and Montgomery Ward, at malls and shopping centers, and in parking lots. She performed various maneuvers and tricks, and took questions from the mostly young audience that came to see her.

While she was on a tour of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Bill Eppridge, a Life magazine photographer, asked her to pose for him once she got to Pittsburgh. When she arrived, Mr. Eppridge took her to the top of a park overlooking the city.