![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ron-Church_0045.jpg\")
DIBI: Thank you for spending the time with me to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JOYCE: Sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
DIBI: Here\u2019s the thing. We\u2019re getting older and a lot of our friends aren\u2019t here anymore. I just think we have to document these stories. People that don\u2019t know you will write about you and, all of a sudden, it changes surf history. They just say what they think it must have been like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JOYCE: Right, and they weren\u2019t there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
DIBI: Right. People have written stuff and I\u2019m like, \u201cI don\u2019t know them. How can they make these comments?\u201d Herbie and I are cognizant of that, so we interview some of these people. We have interviewed Wayne and dad, so there is a format of saving our history. We talked to Velzy out in the barn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JOYCE: Oh nice! He was such a character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DIBI: He ran in the back and started drinking Bacardi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSurfing gave me so much in my life, so many opportunities, places I went and people I met. It was really wonderful to me, so I always try to give back to surfing so that I can be proud of what I have done for surfing because of what surfing has done for me. Hopefully, I will be remembered as a gracious, humble champion who always reflected well on the sport of surfing.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
HERBIE: He was funny. He had a 20-minute conversation with Dibi and then he said, \u201cJust a second. I\u2019ll be right back.\u201d He went into the tack room. I said, \u201cGive him 30 seconds to get the bottle open.\u201d [Laughs] Then I walked back there with my camera firing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
JOYCE: Yes! I love it. Those are the characters that we miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HERBIE: They were the board builders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DIBI: Right. There were still characters in the \u201880s and then it just completely shut down. The surfing industry became about selling \u2018back to school.\u2019 Once it became about selling \u2018back to school\u2019, they had to clean it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JOYCE: The characters wouldn\u2019t fit in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DIBI: Yes. All of a sudden, in a rush to grow these companies, it all changed. None of them should have ever gone public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: No. It was the kiss of death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Once that started happening, it was about corporate earnings and more sales. It was a rush to the bottom and that was really a tragedy of not protecting what was so cool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Right. They didn\u2019t care about protecting it. They were in it for the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HERBIE: What\u2019s cool is what Hobie wrote in his book before he died about your dad teaching him how to make surfboards. That\u2019s how far back the family goes. It\u2019s interesting. I think saving this history and working with Juice Magazine is important because they are willing to print these stories and share the history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: That\u2019s great. Thank you for asking me to be part of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Absolutely. Could you tell me a little bit about being a World Champion surfer in the \u201860s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: It was a lot different than being a World Champion today. Surfing wasn\u2019t that well known and it didn\u2019t have that big of a platform beyond the immediate coast, so your fame was not like the fame that they have today where everyone in the world knows the most famous surfers. For someone who hadn\u2019t pursued it looking for fame, it was a lot of fame for me. When I got the telegram from the Los Angeles Times telling me that I had been named the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year, that was the biggest thing that ever had happened to me because that was slightly outside of surfing. To think that they were recognizing a surfer in the Los Angeles Times, it was amazing. It was very gratifying and very humbling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: I thought that was so interesting because, at the same time, you also got a write up in Sports Illustrated and you got on the cover of Life magazine and you were on The Dating Game and What\u2019s My Line? What do you think it was about you that caught the imagination of a much broader popular culture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Well, I don\u2019t know that it was me so much as it was the time. My time was the perfect storm. It was right when surfing went beyond just the coast and the small group of people that were interested in it to surfing being spread across the country via Madison Avenue. Getting in magazines like that, with Hang Ten and the Gidget movies and The Endless Summer, all of a sudden, people in Kansas City and Nebraska had heard about surfing. From what they saw of it, everyone wanted to pursue that. Why wouldn\u2019t you? Look at The Endless Summer with glassy, beautiful, sunny days and the surf and everybody is in shape and having fun and chasing their dream around the world, so everyone wanted to be part of that. If they couldn\u2019t be part of it, they wanted to learn about it and read about it. I was just fortunate that my time of being a top woman surfer coincided with surfing going across the country and around the world. I think that\u2019s why I got the outside of surfing notoriety from Time Magazine, Life Magazine, Look Magazine and all of that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: I was reading about Surfer magazine, which started in 1960 and Surfing magazine, which was launched in 1964 and they didn\u2019t do much on women\u2019s surfing then, but you went out to a much broader marketplace, which is very interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Yeah. I think I was the quintessential image of what they were trying to sell as surfing. I was a good student and I didn\u2019t party and I was serious about my sport and they were trying to push that image. They didn\u2019t want to be tied to the surfers that were out partying and staying out late and screwing around and whatnot. Madison Avenue now is okay with that kind of stuff, because everybody is, but back then, they weren\u2019t. They were a lot more prudish. I think that was another reason, out of the women surfers, I was chosen to be more representative because that was the image they were trying to sell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Tell me how you got the sponsorship with Triumph Spitfire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: After I won the World Championships in San Diego, I started writing companies and suggesting that they might want to use me as a spokesperson because their particular product went well with surfing. I wrote Triumph Leyland and I sent the magazine articles of me from Look Magazine and Life Magazine and I said, \u201cSurfing is really big and it\u2019s really taking off. I have to drive to the beach every day with my surfboard and I think one of your cars would be fabulous to advertise to surfers.\u201d I wrote Honda Motorcycles and they gave me a motorcycle. I wrote Tourister Luggage and they sent me a whole set of luggage. I just pimped myself out. No one else was doing it for me, so I thought, \u201cWhat the heck?\u201d Most of them didn\u2019t pay me any money, but Triumph gave me a car for a year to use and, when I went around the world, they had a brand new car waiting at the airport for me when I arrived in Australia and when I arrived in New Zealand and when I went to Europe and when I went to South Africa. There would be a car there and I\u2019d use it. When I left, I\u2019d just leave it in the parking lot at the airport and I\u2019d call them up and say, \u201cYour car is there.\u201d They weren\u2019t giving out money in those days, because surfing wasn\u2019t that big, but I got all kinds of product just by promoting myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: I was going to ask you, when you won a contest, was there any contest purse? Was there any money as far as the contests went?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: There was only one contest that they held every year where they gave away TVs. It was the Laguna Masters. I would go to the Laguna Masters every year in Redondo Beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HERBIE: It was at the Redondo Breakwater. I think John Peck won the Men\u2019s and I won the Junior\u2019s and you won the Women\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Right. They gave out TVs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HERBIE: I got a Honda S90!<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Yes! They gave out merchandise. That was the only contest that I ever surfed in where they gave anything other than a trophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: To promote and sponsor yourself to go to all of these contests, you either had to have a job or your mom and dad\u2019s support, so that\u2019s how you were able to go do these things, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Yes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Okay. I saw some clips of you and you had a unique style. Who were you inspired by?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: I really liked Phil Edwards and Billy Hamilton\u2019s style. I used to surf at Oceanside quite a bit and Billy Hamilton surfed there a lot. Of course, he sort of mimicked Phil Edwards because he was trying to mimic him. Then Phil, when he was building his Catamaran, would surf there at Poche, so I really tried to mimic him. There weren\u2019t any women that I tried to mimic because the women before me weren\u2019t as aggressive. They were much more graceful. When you think of Marge Calhoun or Candy Calhoun or Linda Merrill, their posture was really erect and very nice. They really flowed with the wave and they didn\u2019t try to overpower it the way the men did. I was looking and thinking, \u201cIt looks way more fun to surf like Phil or Herbie where they\u2019re really using the wave instead of just standing there calmly and letting the wave decide where they go and how they go. I had the impetus to take a different way of doing surfing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HERBIE: That was the best style going on in those days. You could see it in your surfing and the Makaha stuff. It was really noticeable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Now the women surf just like the men. That\u2019s the way you\u2019re going to get the most out of the wave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HERBIE: The girls nowadays are unbelievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: We were talking about it earlier and it seems to me like our childhood was a golden era because we surfed on clean beaches and uncrowded waves. Do you still surf?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Absolutely. I went out yesterday and the day before. I surf as much as I can while I still can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: What do you think about surfing being in the Olympics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: I\u2019m sorry that it\u2019s going that route. It\u2019s going more conventional and more mainstream. It\u2019s taking more of the uniqueness out of it and turning it into another activity. I think, because it\u2019s going that way, you don\u2019t have the characters attracted to surfing that you had in the \u201850s and \u201860s. In the \u201850s and \u201860s, there were strange people attracted to surfing. It was a strange activity. People didn\u2019t understand it. They thought we were all nuts or weird or crazy or something. I remember the Sports Illustrated article. It attracted unique people. Now that it\u2019s like every other sport, it could be soccer, baseball or football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Doesn\u2019t it seem odd that the surfers who will be competing in the Olympics, have been professional surfers, some of them for decades?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Well, the Olympics are bogus. The Olympics have been bogus for the last 20 years. As soon as they let professional people, like the professional basketball players, play in it, that was the end of the Olympics, as far as I\u2019m concerned. I\u2019m a traditionalist and I\u2019m very conservative, so the Olympics don\u2019t have any of the charm for me that they did before. I feel like surfing has sold out by putting themselves in the Olympics. Shame on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Have you ever surfed in a wave pool?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: No. I might like to, just to see what it\u2019s like, but people growing up in a wave pool are never even going to be able to paddle out. That\u2019s what I think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: We\u2019re going to have a world champion that has never duck dived. [Laughs] <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Exactly. They won\u2019t have to for God\u2019s sakes. You don\u2019t have to pick waves and learn to recognize a good wave from a bad wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: You don\u2019t learn about nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Yeah. It\u2019s like a wet board game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: What does a day well spent in your world look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: A day well spent is getting up and taking a hike up in the hills, three or four miles, outside my house. I love doing that. I love seeing the horses out in the pastures, because I live in a horse stable. I love seeing the sun come up and then going down to Carlsbad and surfing with a couple of my good friends on some beautiful waves. Six or seven of us old gals that have surfed since the \u201860s all met down in San Onofre and surfed and reminisced and told big stories and remembered the good ol\u2019 days. It was a magical day. We keep our good memories alive by talking about them. We were all laughing about what we were doing back then and what it was like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: I remember going to the contests back then. You go to the contests now in Hawaii and it\u2019s just so different. Then it was an event, but it had a much different feel to it. Now it\u2019s just a huge trade show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Yeah. It\u2019s a carnival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Yeah. It loses something in that. Are you active on social media?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: No. It seems like it\u2019s a time suck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would that be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Winston Churchill. There wasn\u2019t anybody smarter or stronger with more character and integrity in the 20th Century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: What would you like to do on the bucket list that you haven\u2019t done yet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Well, I would have liked to have done kite surfing, but I know I\u2019m too old to start that, so that\u2019s kinda disappointing. I would have liked to snowboard up in The Bugaboos but, again, I\u2019m too old, so I know that I can\u2019t do that. I love to go camping and fly fishing. I love to travel in the United States and see all of the beautiful parks and forests, so I\u2019m hoping to spend more time doing that in the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: How would you like to be remembered? <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Well, I\u2019d like to be remembered as a good representative of surfing. Surfing gave me so much in my life, so many opportunities, places I went and people I met. It was really wonderful to me, so I always try to give back to surfing so that I can be proud of what I have done for surfing because of what surfing has done for me. Hopefully, I will be remembered as a gracious, humble champion who always reflected well on the sport of surfing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: In going through some of the stuff online to find things that people might be interested in, that is what is said about you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Really? That\u2019s nice. I guess I succeeded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Yeah. They all spoke very highly of you and said you were a very driven champion and you were a really good ambassador. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Well, then I succeeded because that\u2019s my wildest dream!<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: You\u2019ve always been extremely athletic. What are your latest obsessions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: My latest obsession is not obsessing. It\u2019s giving my self permission to not obsess over things. I hiked this morning and I went to the gym and I rode my bike and I\u2019m still trying to be active. Mostly, I stay active so I can keep surfing because that\u2019s the thing that I really love to do. I don\u2019t love the gym and hiking gets tedious, but I do all of that so I can keep surfing, but I no longer obsess. I don\u2019t think about anything anymore and that\u2019s really a relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Well, you\u2019ve talked about your greatest accomplishment, but what was your most crushing defeat along the way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Well, I really hated to lose. There was a time when I drove Jericho Poppler, who is a couple of years younger than me, to a contest. She was only 16, so she couldn\u2019t drive yet, and I drove her to the Santa Cruz contest and we competed there in the days of the AAAs and the AAs. It was the Western Surfing Association and Jericho beat me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Did she have to walk home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: No, but I wouldn\u2019t speak to her the whole drive. It was an eight-hour drive home and I never said a word to her. I\u2019m embarrassed about that now, but I couldn\u2019t help myself. I couldn\u2019t believe it. Not only did I lose, but I frickin\u2019 lost to her. I regret that now. We laugh about it, thank god. She laughs and thinks it\u2019s funny, but she was 16. Poor thing. She won and I should have been big enough to celebrate that with her, but I just couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: When I look at modern surfing, it\u2019s so much different than when you and I were young. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Oh gosh, yeah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: I remember it as fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DIBI: Now I don\u2019t think it\u2019s so much fun. People drive to the beach and get out of their car and go for a surf and get back in their BMW and drive off. They don\u2019t have that beach life most of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n JOYCE: I will say that it\u2019s still really alive in San Onofre. They come with their family, just like we did. The family comes \u2013 the mom and the dad and the kids and the dog. The kids are surfing now and the moms are too. When we were kids, most of the moms didn\u2019t surf, except for Liz Irwin and a few others. Now the moms surf too. It\u2019s very family still. It\u2019s way too crowded, but it\u2019s still catering to family. When I was there, Don Craig was there. He went there as a kid when we went there and it was a private club and we were talking about the family thing and how it\u2019s carried over. At other beaches, I don\u2019t know that it does. They may just come and surf and leave. At San Onofre, it still brings families and they bring their lunch and they still have the fire on the beach in the evening and roast their marshmallows. It\u2019s still alive there. There\u2019s still a little piece of the endless summer in San Onofre, which is really nice to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Stoner_Joyce_1.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ron-Church_0016b.jpg\")
\u201cAfter I won the World Championships in San Diego, I started writing companies and suggesting that they might want to use me as a spokesperson because their particular product went well with surfing. So I wrote Triumph Leyland and I sent the magazine articles of me from Look magazine and Life magazine and I said, \u201cSurfing is really big and it\u2019s really taking off. I have to drive to the beach every day with my surfboard and whatnot and I think one of your cars would be fabulous to advertise to surfers.\u201d <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ron-Church_0019.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Stoner_Joyce_2.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ron-Church_0007b.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ron-Church_0013a.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/77-JOYCEHOFFMAN-1-2.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cMy time was the perfect storm. It was right when surfing went beyond just the coast and the small group of people that were interested in it to being spread across the country via Madison Avenue.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/77-JOYCEHOFFMAN-3-4.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n