GUY B. WOODWARD MUSEUM REOPENS SATURDAY
Large rotating exhibits, tractor section, informative placards among changes
Ramona’s Guy B. Woodward Museum will reopen Saturday with plans for more community involvement.
The museum was originally set to open April 17 after a two-year closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but leaders wanted more time to get the museum organized and ready for visitors and tours.
The museum is expected to be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays initially and then expand as attendance and operations ramp up, said Suzanne Dobrotin, the museum’s new operations manager.
Museum organizers, which include the Ramona Pioneer Historical Society, are hoping to expand the museum, Dobrotin said.
The first phase of the reopening plan includes cleaning the museum, attracting volunteers and docents, updating social media and conducting outreach to the community and schools, Dobrotin said.
Phase two and three involve expanding the museum and transforming it into a community hub, she said. Plans include the addition of a tractor section to display some of the pioneer families’ vintage tractors and offering more educational information, particularly for home-schooled children, said Dobrotin, who homeschools her own 14- and 17-year-old children.
Dobrotin began working for the museum in early February, after the retirement of Bob Hailey, who was operations manager at the museum since 2017.
“It’s a way to honor my father-inlaw and his passion for this town,” she said about Mischa Dobrotin, a Ramona
resident since 1948 and president of the Ramona Pioneer Historical Society, which owns and operates the museum. “It’s a family tradition.”
The museum’s grand reopening Saturday coincides with its participation in the annual Taste of Ra
mona event hosted by the Ramona Chamber of Commerce. The museum is one of 24 participants at 18 locations that will offer food and beverage samples to ticket holders from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
A small section of the museum will also be open during the Thursday evening American Graffiti Cruise Nights.
The museum has also been welcoming small groups of schoolchildren and, going forward, plans to be open during Main Street community events such as Halloween trick-ortreating and the Christmas tree lighting, Dobrotin said.
“We’ve had a lot of volunteers come in and meticulously clean and help us restore some of the older artifacts,” Dobrotin said.
Museum curator Leslie Delaney said volunteers are in the midst of updating some of the exhibits. New items are being added to the Verlaque House, and the wine cellar exhibit and other areas are being updated so visitors can better understand the significance of the artifacts, Delaney said.
In upcoming months, large rotating exhibits will be on display for three to six months, she said.
“We’ll start with an exhibit on the Ramona Rodeo and Casey Tibbs and the rodeo’s influence on Ramona,” said Delaney, who studied museum curation at San Diego State University. “That will be on display this summer.
Delaney said Guy B. Woodward Museum feels like a small country museum, but it has extensive collections that cover California’s early history going back to when the area was under Spanish and Mexican rule. Some of its exhibits include artifacts from Warnock Ranch that includes a blacksmith shop, tack room and bunkhouse; vintage automobiles and firetrucks, mining equipment and an extensive collection of textiles and clothing along with research libraries that include Ramona Sentinel newspaper issues dating back more than 100 years.