The Media

The Media

"Investor group plans upgrade for Rawhide Ranch..."

April 23, 2000

Harry Brooks
S t a f f W r i t e r

[The Writer Captured This Program in Print]

BONSALL ---- An authentic 1800s water wagon welcomes visitors on the dirt road entry into Rawhide Ranch's replica Old West town, where the painted sign at Linda's Red Barn Cafe beckons their appetites and wallets by displaying prices of 65 cents for antelope steak and 3 cents for coffee.

But Linda's actually ain't for eats, the townsfolk tell newcomers.

It's the temporary residence of Tom Ewan, the new executive director of Rawhide Ranch, a 37-acre spread that was transformed from a deserted hog ranch into a thriving children's camp over the past 36 years.

Last month, an investor group, naming itself SVN Rawhide Ranch LLC, purchased the camp operation off West Lilac Road in Bonsall for $3.25 million. The group, headed by Rand Sperry, chief executive officer of the Irvine-based financial brokerage firm Sperry Van Ness, plans to invest $500,000 to refurbish and expand the camp's offerings, Ewan said.

"We're going to enhance it, but not change it," he said. "It's offered a great program in a great setting for kids for a long, long time."

Sperry echoed the outlook, saying: "Why try to fix something that's not broken?"

He recalled being immediately impressed with the vintage atmosphere when his daughter, Katie, attended camp at Rawhide Ranch two years ago.

"I was mesmerized when I got there," Sperry said. "It was amazing to see a town like Knott's Berry Farm."

Ewan said additions will include sports fields and possibly a rock-climbing wall and a basketball court.

"These would just broaden our activities, but they wouldn't change the traditional theme here," he said while walking down the dirt road that bisects the camp's four-block town area, stepping carefully to dodge fresh manure that had been dotted on the route by a recently passing horse.

Meanwhile, Rawhide Ranch's founders, Mary Jean and Clarence Chown, will join their son, Robert, in developing a new 600-acre, Western-style retreat for adults and families in Gainesville, Texas, about 50 miles north of Dallas.

"It was hard work keeping this place up, but it was rewarding," said Mary Jean Chown, 67, while sitting outside the camp office in a building depicted to onlookers as the town hotel.

The Chowns spent decades developing Rawhide Ranch by collecting antiques, ornaments and equipment for display, tearing down old buildings and resurrecting them on the camp grounds and installing modern attractions, such as an Olympic-size outdoor swimming pool, a rodeo stadium and a covered 100-by-200-foot horse show and training arena.

"This work is the kind you don't put a monetary value on," Mary Jean Chown said. "A lot of people say they love kids, but they're thinking of maybe five or six at a time. Try 180."

Chown was referring to the average number of youthful campers that Rawhide Ranch hosts weekly during its summer season, running from June 18 through Labor Day weekend. An average of 100 campers populate Rawhide Ranch from Monday through Saturday during the off-season.

Weekend camping for 100 children also is offered, but it is booked through 2002, Ewan said. Camp prices are $325 for the one-week program and $125 for weekend stays.

"The reason why less children are here on weekends and in the off-season has to do with reduced staffing, not building capacity," Ewan said, adding that 12 full-time employees live in the camp's town.

Children, meanwhile, get to find out firsthand what it was like bedding down in an Old West bunkhouse or under the canopy of a covered wagon.

They also are assigned to care for the variety of animals kept at Rawhide Ranch, including calves, milk cows, sheep, chickens, horses, llamas and goats, which commonly climb atop their shed to peer down at passers-by.

Horse-related activities will get a stronger focus under the new ownership, Ewan said.

"We're going to offer horse training and riding lessons," he said. "We'll also be selling foals that are born here."

The shift of emphasis in camp offerings will mean the end of two traditional programs at Rawhide Ranch. Quarter-horse training will be discontinued, and the state-certified Rawhide Vocational College for horse care and farm management will close, Ewan said.

"It's exciting to me because we'll get into different types of horse training," said Lynn Davenport, a resident trainer at the ranch. "The people who come here will be able to get more experience working with horses."

Camper Jordan Darragh, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Bethany Christian School near Pasadena, said equine training was the highlight of his stay at the camp but noted that his stall-cleaning was the least appealing part of it.

"It's great here. Horseback riding is my favorite thing, but I have to pick up the poop," said Darragh who joined other members of his fifth-grade class from Bethany Christian School near Pasadena for a week stay at the camp earlier this month.

Christian schools, which provide many of the off-season campers, are attracted to the nondenominational religious portion of Rawhide Ranch's program that will continue, Ewan said. However, campers, who are not sponsored by Christian schools or organizations, can choose not to participate in religious activities, he pointed out.

Before coming to Rawhide Ranch, Ewan, 44, worked 20 years for the Boy Scouts of America, spending the last 13 as a camp director in Aurora, Ill., near Chicago.

"I saw the job opening on the Internet and applied," said Ewan, who soon will be joined by his wife, Val, and the youngest of his two daughters in a home that fronts as Rawhide Bank in the camp's replica town.

"This is quite an enjoyable change from the urban setting I came from," Ewan said. "I grew up in small towns in Illinois and Iowa, so I guess I've been a country and camp kid all my life. I'm look forward to watching our plans for this place unfold."

April 23, 2000

Harry Brooks
S t a f f W r i t e r

Return to The RAWHIDE RANCH 2006 Home Page
Return to TBNC Home Page