- Welcome to Inland Edition, where this season, we're having conversations with people who represent nonprofit organizations, [light background music] working to make the Inland Empire a better place.

My name is Joe Richardson.

I'm a local attorney, Inland Empire resident and your host.

And today, we're going to chat with Lori Van Arsdale, a board member of the historic Ramona Bowl.

The Ramona Bowl is more than an amphitheater in Hemet, California.

It's also home to the longest running drama in the nation, The Ramona Pageant, which employs hundreds of people each year and showcases the rich heritage of Southern California's native tribes and their participants.

Lori Van Arsdale spent her childhood years living on the Navajo reservation, where she experienced the culture and traditions of southwestern Native Americans.

She moved with her family to Hemet, California in 1972 and eventually became Hemet's mayor for 16 years.

Now on the board of the Ramona Bowl, she works towards keeping the natural amphitheater maintained and serving the community as a place to gather and celebrate.

Let's meet her and learn more about the Ramona Bowl and its value to our community.

[soft piano music] ♪ [gentle upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - [Joe] So, from the Ramona Bowl, we have Lori Van Arsdale.

Lori, thanks for being here.

- Thank you, Joe, for having me.

- This is something that's in the well-kept secret category.

This has been going on, I must confess, right under my nose, and I didn't know until a neutral, mutual friend of ours let me know about the Ramona Bowl and all the great things are going.

- Alright.

- So, what I want you to do, we'll do a couple things.

I want to just talk about you a bit.

And then, you know, how you end up in the geographic area of Ramona Bowl, which is in Hemet.

And then, we'll talk about the Ramona Bowl itself.

- OK. - So, first things first 'cause you're, you're a pretty fascinating person yourself!

So, tell me about your background (Lori laughs) and how you wound up in the Hemet area.

- Well, as a little kid, I lived on the Navajo reservation.

That was the first part of my life.

Loved, loved it.

Remembered roaming the reservation and learned about the culture, and especially from my grandmother.

And, she's not native.

I thought she was, but she's Hispanic.

But, we lived there for six years and that gave me a sense of what the Navajo reservation was about; enough to carry it with me when we moved back to Colorado at the-- right at the base of Ute Mountain, which is the Ute Mountain tribe of Colorado.

So, I was always around friends that were native and always appreciated what I got to do to participate in everything from ceremony to traditions, et cetera.

So, I came from that.

When I was in eighth grade, we came to California and we wound up in Hemet.

- [Joe] Wow.

- Hemet has the Ramona Bowl Amphitheater.

And, we are the longest running outdoor drama in the country, and California's official outdoor play.

So, with that native sense about it, I got familiar.

Everybody in town used to participate one way or another.

And so, I got to be real involved back in '92.

So, about 31 years.

- Among other things, you've been on city council for 16 years and a few turns as mayor.

A lot of professional endeavors, et cetera.

Right?

But, what's amazing to me is that your background in other places, including Colorado, really set you up to connect with the mission of the Ramona Bowl.

And so, to get into the Ramona Bowl, we gotta talk about, "Ramona," and we've gotta talk about who wrote, "Ramona."

- [Lori] Absolutely!

- So, let's get into that.

Here's another thing that people really need to know about.

- In the late 1800s, there's a woman named Helen Hunt Jackson, who was a very prolific writer.

She grew up in the New England states.

She was married.

Their first son died before he was a year old.

Their second son survived, but her husband was a engineer and he passed away of a submarine prototype test accident.

- [Joe] Wow.

- Now that's back in the 1870s, if you can imagine.

She and her first son contracted diphtheria.

(Joe whistles empathy) She survived, and he did not.

He was nine years old when he passed.

So, Helen Hunt, that was her name at the time, passed a whole lot of things through her life.

But, that was one of the, of course, most difficult things that she had to bear.

She had a doctor that recommended that she go to Colorado for better weather.

There's my Colorado connection.

And, she was-- went to Colorado Springs, which I kind of laugh because coming from Colorado to here, I know how cold it is back there!

- [Joe] Right.

(chuckles) Better weather in Colorado?

- Better weather!

- OK!

We can talk about that some other time.

- Better weather in Colorado!

(Joe laughs) But-?

So, she ended up being in Colorado and she remarried to a gentleman named William Jackson.

He encouraged her to keep writing.

She was a very prolific writer, and he encouraged that to continue and supported her in doing that.

She was friends with Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

All of these folks were writers of their time.

- Right.

- And, I always say that these were the rock stars of their day.

- Sure.

- Because, they didn't have movies.

They had plays.

But they were the rock stars, really.

And so, on one of her trips back east, she was at a meeting and with some friends, and they had a visit from Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca Indian tribe.

And, he came to them because he knew they had influence in Washington.

And, he asked for their help because their tribe was being thrown off their land.

She was so incensed about what was happening to Chief Standing Bear and the Ponca tribe.

And, she couldn't believe it was going on until she started studying.

And, she found out it was not only happening to the Ponca tribe, it was happening all over the country.

That made her very, very upset.

But, it also made her a woman with a cause!

(both laugh) So-?

But, she dove into that issue with all of her heart and soul.

She finally decided to write a book, and it was called, and chronicled seven tribes, and it was called, "Century of Dishonor."

And, that book, she actually-- covered in blood red leather.

She said for her publishers to do that.

And, she and her husband took that book and handed it to every congressman and every senator in Washington, DC and she said, "You need to do something about this."

Now, that book was published in 1881.

And, a woman who couldn't even vote herself was going around saying, "You need to do something about this."

- So, it's kind of like in the-- "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again" category.

She writes this amazing book; doesn't really jump off.

But, she's not quite done.

Right?

- She's not done.

No, she's not.

(Joe laughs) They did hire her.

With her-- She was hired to do some magazine articles out in California, but they did hire her to do a report on our mission tribes around California.

- Right.

- I know out in Hemet, we have the Soboba tribe.

- Sure.

- And, she found out while she was visiting, through the teacher, named Mary Sheriff, at the Noli Indian School.

We have one of the oldest schools, Native American schools at Soboba and still is there.

She found out that they were about to be displaced.

There was a guy from San Bernardino, wanting to come and get their land through the federal government.

So, she got very upset with that.

She wrote quickly a telegraph back said, "You need to stop this.

You need to do something."

They did nothing.

So, she did hire an attorney with her own money to help Soboba and other tribes and Pechanga, which eventually that attorney was essential in helping them to get their reservation status.

- Wow.

- So, as she was traveling and she was visiting our valley, there were many things that were happening that were concerning to her.

Temecula, the Pechanga tribe.

They pushed them off into an area that had-- doesn't even have water.

As she said, "It was disgusting."

But, she took, and she wrote that report and she sent it to the federal government.

And, she found out, of course, the same thing.

They did nothing much.

- Hm.

- And, that's when she realized that in order to really move the hearts and minds of this country, she needed to do what her friends and peers had done, who had written-- Harriet Beecher Stowe had written, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

- Right, right.

- There was "Hiawatha".

There were things that were written that moved people.

- Right.

- But, she knew it wasn't a factual book.

It needed to have some fiction.

And, what she did was she took her experiences from around our region.

Particularly in Hemet, there was a man named Sam Temple, who shot an Indian named Juan Diego, because he says he stole his horse.

Well, Juan Diego borrowed his horse, sort of, but still shot him.

There was a trial of Sam Temple.

He went and admitted that he shot him and he got off scot-free.

- Oh.

- And so, issues and situations like that moved her greatly.

And, she took and she blended fact with fiction.

She says she wrote as if she were possessed.

- Right.

- Woke up one morning, it all came to her, as if it was already done.

And, she began writing a book December 1st, 1883.

And, she truly wrote as if she were possessed.

And, she wrote that book as fast as she could go, hand writing.

December 1st, 1883.

And, she finished March 8th, 1884 at 11 o'clock at night.

And, that book was wildly popular.

- Right.

And that's, "Ramona," right?

- And, that book is named "Ramona."

- [Joe] Wow!

So, she's-- - [Lori] Never gone out of print.

- And, ever gone out of print.

We're at, what, a hundred years now?

Close to it?

- 1884.

More.

- So, tell me about how "Ramona" becomes this play that gets done, and is basically the central theme, as I understand, of the Ramona Bowl in Hemet.

- "Ramona," being a very popular book, thousands and thousands of people came to California because of the book.

They came to see Ramona's marriage place, the different things that they thought were related to it.

So, there were movies made, silent movies.

There were three silents and two talkies.

And, during that time, that time period, that was the teens, '20s and '30s.

In 1921, our community, our chamber of commerce, there was a gentleman at the chamber of commerce that thought this was a great idea, and he took it to the board and said, "We need to do "a play of 'Ramona,' the book.

We need to write it."

So, they had a lot of trouble getting the rights to it.

So, when that was finally done, they knew of a gentleman named Garnet Holme, who was doing plays out in the Palm Springs area, outdoor plays.

- Right.

- And, they went there to steal his ideas and instead, they hired him (Joe chuckles) and they brought him back to Hemet.

He wrote the play, and he chose the site.

And, this Ramona Bowl has the most amazing acoustical properties.

- [Joe] Right.

- [Lori] Our play was never miked until the mid '80s.

- Wow, wow.

- It was big voices.

- Right.

- But, the acoustics in there are just absolutely amazing.

- Surrounded by mountains?

Or, what's it surrounded by?

- [Lori] We're a hill site.

We're in the southern hillsides of Hemet.

- [Joe] Right.

- [Lori] And, it was considered a little bit of a canyon at the time, when they first discovered it.

And, Mr. Percival from the chamber of commerce took Garnet Holme, and showed him around the valley.

And, that's one place they took him.

And, he could tell that it was a perfect place.

We call it the 100th anniversary because we got shut down during World War II.

- Right.

- And, we had COVID.

- Wow.

- So, we just celebrated our hundredth anniversary last year.

- So, literally, the Ramona Bowl does the "Ramona" play every year.

- Every year, as long as there's no COVID and there's no world wars!

(Joe laughs) So, everybody's got to behave and don't get sick!

And, we'll be out there every year and it's a 5,000 seat amphitheater.

And, it's a beautiful, beautiful setting.

It is one of the best places for concerts.

No better place for a summer night concert than the Ramona Bowl.

- [Joe] Tell me about some of the challenges.

You've alluded to it a little bit, but some of the challenges just related to upkeep, the things that you have to do.

You have this beautiful setting, right?

A beautiful natural setting with, even though you use mikes, you've got natural acoustics.

It could not have been more perfectly placed, right?

- [Lori] It's major upkeep, certainly.

And, because our infrastructure is anywhere from 50 to 100 years old, usually.

Some of it's 30 and 40, but our major infrastructure construction is that old.

We have lots of things that happen.

We have a gravity-fed water system.

We pump it from the bottom, goes up to tanks on the top of the hill.

- Wow.

- Then, it has to come back down!

(she chuckles) - Really?

- And then, it has to come back down through very old galvanized pipes that happened to break last year during the play.

So, there was this little stream runnin' through the play (both laugh) that wasn't supposed to be there, but we- - The show must go on!

- Worked around it.

The show must go on, as they all say.

And, the horses!

We have horses and cowboys, and we have truly cowboys and Indians that are part of the play.

- Tell me about famous alums.

- Ahh!

- People that have participated in the show.

- Yes.

Well, some of the earliest famous alums were Victor Jory.

Victor Jory was, gosh, he was in over 150 films down through his years.

He was always in-- he was "The Shadow", in those shows.

But, he started in the '20s with us.

- Right.

Wow.

- Late '20s.

He was Alessandro 10 times.

And then, he was our director for many years.

- Right.

- And, his wife, Jean Inness, was also in television.

So, they both were a part of that.

We've had Raquel Welch.

Raquel Welch was Ramona in 1959.

She was 18 years old, just getting her career started.

- [Joe] Kinda like that was her big break.

- [Lori] That was her big break.

That was truly.

And that's-- she said that when she came back and visited us in 2009.

She came back for her 50th anniversary.

And then, we had Anne Archer, and she was 1969.

And, she was at a film festival in Idyllwild.

And, I asked her to tell us if-- how "Ramona" affected her.

- Right.

Sure.

- Same thing.

It was, she was young.

It was one of the first things she did in her career.

It helped to launch her to be able to go to New York.

And, she mentioned several things that it-- she felt like it did to help her to move on into her career.

- So, is there a place that people can learn more about the history before they even come to the play?

- They certainly can learn about it before.

We have things on our website at ramonabowl.com, but we also have a museum at the Bowl.

- Oh!

Okay.

- And, you can come in and not only see, like, Raquel Welch in 1959, we've got some really special things in the museum.

One of them is a fresco, and a fresco is like a mural, but it's embedded in the plaster, the color?

- [Joe] Okay.

- [Lori] And, this fresco was done by a gentleman named Milford Zornes.

Milford Zornes was world famous, eventually, but he came in 1942 to do a fresco with his Otis Art Institute students.

So, the fresco is 18 feet high and 16 feet wide.

And, back in 1942 when he brought his Otis Art Institute students to do this, it was a ticket office, and we don't-?

Not sure how they contracted with him to do it, but it was able-- You could see it; you could behold it.

Then, that ticket office became a museum.

Then, it became a gift shop.

Then, things were in front of it.

Then, there was a staircase that went up to the mezzanine and it blocked it quite a bit.

And, back in the late '70s, the general manager told the museum docents to paint over it because it'd been banged up at the bottom.

And, they knew it'd be very expensive to fix.

- Right.

(chuckles) - We had a fresco expert come with the daughter of Milford Zornes to do a talk, on our 90th anniversary.

And, this expert told us that we had a national treasure- - Wow.

- in this museum.

And, the national treasure was because he had done other murals, but he had never done a fresco other than ours.

- [Joe] This is all super interesting, but let's take it to the next level by talking to the president of the board as well as a director of the actual play.

[light upbeat music] ♪ - A couple of major things that we lose if we lose the Ramona Bowl.

First of all, we lose the opportunity to take Ramona Bowl and use it to help the community grow and develop.

- The story is about racism and oppression.

It's a great love story.

But, the idea of people repressing people, even the señora is opposed to Alessandro and Ramona marrying because he's Native American.

And, we can see people opposed to any kind of marriage, then racial oppression and then violence.

I mean, the play is entertaining.

You know, it's not just about violence, but we'd lose that message.

And also, from the Native American standpoint, we'd lose again, the testimony that Native Americans were repressed.

They were murdered.

They were, you know, killed right here in Riverside County.

So, we'd lose that.

My name is Dennis Anderson and I'm the artistic director of "Ramona," California's official state outdoor play.

- My name is Joe Grindstaff and I'm the president of the board of directors for Ramona Bowl.

The second thing that we lose is the community involvement that we have here.

We have upwards of 400 people, every year, when we have the play.

Those hundreds of people work together.

They come from many different parts of the community.

People get to know one another that would never otherwise interact.

That is incredibly important, I think, for the community.

When you get to work together the way we do with "Ramona", I think that's an incredibly beneficial thing for the community.

- [Dennis] Our youngest actor's 5 years old and our oldest is 94.

And, this has been going on since 1923.

The community just comes up and does this wonderful play and it brings-- What I love, it brings everybody, different religions, different races, different political, you know, platforms all together.

And, we just do this show and it makes the play so vibrant to the community.

- [Joe] My vision for the future is that we actually are able to increase the number of events here, that we're able to bring in people from around the country to come see concerts, to come see additional plays, and to continue with, "Ramona," the play.

And, I think that's really important.

And, actually, we were in discussions with a couple of groups right now about coming to put on events here.

And, in many ways, I don't have to sell 'em very much at all.

The main thing I have to do is get 'em to come look.

Once they come look at the site and they see a venue that has 5,500 seats that has all of the beauty that we have here, they're sold.

- [Dennis] We've kept this going since 1923.

And, we receive no federal, state government funding.

- [Joe] Our ongoing budget, just to get by, to pay utilities, pay insurance, pay those things is around $300,000 a year, $25,000 a month.

And, we've done a lot.

We've had some donations and we've managed to make probably a million and a half dollars worth of improvements up here.

But, we probably have another $10 million worth of improvements that we need to make over the next few years to really upgrade the facility.

- [Dennis] It is for the people.

We're outdoors during the day.

We don't do any tricky lighting.

It's for everybody.

I mean, there is the love story, but we also have 140 kids in the show.

And, we have cowboys, horses.

We have Spanish dances.

We have native-- we don't use the word "pageantry" as much as was used back in the 1920s.

But, it's spectacular when you see these mountains filled with kids and music, and just dynamic celebration of the performing arts.

Even if you didn't care about love stories, you didn't care about, you know, the repression, it's a great afternoon of entertainment.

There's nothing like it.

[light upbeat music] ♪ - [Joe] What would you want people to know about the Ramona Bowl that, you know?

That they just, you know, that you couldn't convey enough?

Like, here's what I-- "here's the takeaway."

I mean, we got 30 minutes of takeaways here, by the way!

But, what would you want them to take from the Ramona Bowl that really just moves you on the inside?

- [Lori] The Ramona Bowl is a place like no other, where history and the arts come together.

And, the experience that you have when you come will last a lifetime.

It should be against the law in Southern California to not have seen it!

- And, I want you to know, I'm ready to get in compliance with that!

- Thank you.

Thank you, but most of all, we'd like you to come and see it.

The second thing is donations are wonderful.

Everybody's hit up for donations for all kinds of things.

But, we-- once again, we're only funded by ticket sales, donations and our grants that we get written.

But, more than anything, we'd love for you to come and experience what has come to be known as one of the most amazing places and experiences of history.

And, the sense about it is something that you'll-- It'll last a lifetime.

I go to these places to promote "Ramona."

If I'm down in Orange County, promoting it at a home show or down in Palm Springs, people will come up to the booth going, "'Ramona'!

You're still doing 'Ramona?'

I was there when I was a kid."

- How do people get information about "Ramona", online?

- Online is ramonabowl.com Very, very easy.

Our phone number is (951) 658-3111.

We're there five days a week and next two weeks, we'll start being there six.

But, ramonabowl.com you can get most everything you need.

You can look us up on YouTube, all the things we've been doing and up to.

- Right.

- But, we would love to have you come.

- So, Lori Van Arsdale, we want to thank you for coming on behalf of Ramona Bowl and I can't wait to go myself.

And, I'm going!

I promise I'm goin'.

- Thank you very much.

We'll welcome you with big open arms.

We might even put you in it, if you want.

- Oh my God, I don't know if I need that!

- If you're a dancer.

- We already had that "face for radio" conversation!

I don't know if we need that!

So-?

But, thank you.

- Alright, you're welcome.

- And, thanks for joining us on Inland Edition, where we highlight the lifechanging work being done here in the Inland Empire, one conversation at a time.

So, until that next time, see ya.

[uplifting music and vocals] ♪ [softer music and vocals] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [music fades]