I talked with Fred yesterday about March 14th, he called from Hawaii were he has lived for sometime. He said he would write a few notes about Johnny.

Here is that Letter...

3/26/97

Dear Ray:

Johnny Rice came down to the beach in Santa Cruz filled with curiosity about what we were doing with surfboards. In the early fifties he was ten years old and a handsome kid, well proportioned for his age, and had a quick and witty tongue. He watched us surf at Cowell's and then one day asked if he could borrow my brother's board that had an octopus design on it.

My brother, Peter Van Dyke, was only a couple of years older than Johnny and Peter took Johnny under his guidance. He taught Johnny how to paddle, to turn the board, and told him to watch out when he caught a wave that he did not pearl dive.

However, in those days, before we allowed anyone to use a board we made sure that they were water safe. Johnny was practically born on the beach and spent every day that he could swimming and body surfing the shorebreak at Cowell's beach.

We watched him swim anyway just to be on the safe side and he passed with flying colors. Peter borrowed my board and accompanied Johnny to the break at Cowell's. Watching from the beach, I saw Johnny paddling, slide down the face of the wave, and stand up. It appeared from the beach that he was a natural. Five rides later Johnny was riding, turning back, and making the wave to the beach.

Soon afterwards Johnny got interested in shaping and Ted Pierson, who had taught all of us to surf, also knew how to shape a surfboard. Johnny observed, listened, and learned to shape. Santa Cruz, in those days, did not have anyone who commercially made boards, and Johnny was one of the first. He shaped with the knowledge weaned from famous shapers of the time, Dale Velzy, Hobie, Alonzo Wiemers, who came back from Hawaii with combined knowledge of shaping from Hawaiian experts like George Downing, Wally Froiseth, Joe Quigg, and others. Wiemers passed the ability onto Johnny.

By now Johnny had shaped his own surfboard made of balsa wood, and he was the best all around surfer in Santa Cruz, displaying turns and kick outs that we could only sit and admire.

Johnny's skill lay in shaping. He seemed to pull together all the knowledge that he had gained into building a surfboard that made it possible for its owners to perform, not as well as Johnny, but better than they had on other boards. He instantly became recognized as the best in Santa Cruz and surfers came from all over to have one of his boards. Johnny knew about scoop and rocker usage long before anyone else in Santa Cruz. He could shape a board for Steamer Lane, Pleasure or the Islands.

Born with a sharp tongue, wry sense of humor, no one fooled around with him.

Aloha,

Fred Van Dyke