Ron Good - Activist, Author, and Musician
- Ron Good was inspired by the writings of John Muir to dedicate a life to environmental advocacy and living. Ron was first introduced to John Muir through the book, The Wilderness World of John Muir, edited by Edwin Way Teale. Ron says, “Teale’s introductory paragraphs provide the context for Muir’s wonderful stories of adventure and love of the out-of-doors.”
- Ron holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics, a master’s degree in public policy, a master’s degree in education, and a law degree. For hobbies he enjoys playing the fiddle, hiking, travel, and spending time with family and friends. He and his partner Lisa focus on healthy living and outdoor travel.
- Becoming a member of the Sierra Club in the mid-1970s, he was an employee of the Sierra Club Ohio Chapter and the national office for many years. He also served as a volunteer for the Club; in the late 1980’s he became chair of the Club’s “Hetch Hetchy Restoration Task Force” and obtained endorsements for the proposal to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park from dozens of Sierra Club chapters, especially in California.
- Becoming disenchanted with the Club’s internal bureaucracy and recognizing the need to make the effort more mainstream and not merely a Sierra Club project, Ron founded the independent advocacy group Restore Hetch Hetchy, and served as its first chair from incorporation in January, 2000 until July 24, 2001 when he was hired as the Executive Director. Restore Hetch Hetchy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to restore the place John Muir called “a grand landscape garden, one of Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples.” To Ron, the rebuttal to the argument against restoration was simple: “This dam was done by humans, it can be undone by humans.” After several years as Executive Director, Ron left the organization to pursue other interests and employment.
- As a seasonal interpreter for the National Park Service at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez for many years, Ron understands the life and legacy of John Muir much better than most people. He also lived in Yosemite Valley from June 1998 – June 2002, soaking up the world that Muir had loved so well.
- Ron says, “Muir’s biggest influences on me are his incandescent spirit and his ability to pull through hardships. Most of all, I appreciate Muir’s love of the out-of-doors and his ability to communicate that love through his writings.”
- Beginning in 2020, after a poorly researched article, “Pulling Down Our Monuments” by Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune was published, Ron bemoaned the failure of the Sierra Club to “consult numerous Muir scholars who could have properly and objectively interpreted Muir’s references to and observations of African Americans and Native Americans. Unfortunately, it will take many years of careful, thoughtful, and sustained effort by people of good will to undo Brune’s grossly uninformed portrayal of John Muir.”
- Ron’s favorite John Muir quote: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” — John Muir
Music
- “John Muir’s Return to Hetch Hetchy” by Ron Good – (PDF – Sheet music to a fiddle tune.)
- “Paradise: Hetch Hetchy Valley” (John Prine Parody) Lyrics by Ron Good
Video
- Interviewed in Hetch Hetchy: Yosemite’s Lost Valley (Video documentary, 17 min., YouTube)
- Ron Good reads John Muir’s poetic description of Tueeulala Falls in Hetch Hetchy – Yosemite National Park – (Video, 30 seconds, YouTube)
- Rangers Daniel Prial and Ron Good practice the “John Muir Mountain Days” Camp Song, “Born To Love the Wild,” written by Jill Harcke.
Writings
- Ron Good interviewed David Brower in his Interview of David Brower About Hetch Hetchy (May, 2000).
- “Open Letter Regarding Reluctant Renewal of Sierra Club Membership” by Ron Good (September 10, 2021). Long-time member and former staff member explains his discontent with the Club’s smear campaign against its founder. While he renewed his membership in order to vote for a slate of reform candidates, when the Club remained intent on diluting its original mission and focus on the environment to shift its priorities to “identity politics,” Ron ultimately did not renew his membership in 2022.
- December 2000 – The Hetchysburg Address:
by Ron Good, Founder of Restore Hetch Hetchy
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new dam and reservoir, conceived in the Bay Area, and dedicated to the proposition that all national parks are not created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil debate — testing whether that dam and reservoir, or any things so conceived and so dedicated — should any longer endure. We are met at a great time during that debate.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that debate as a lasting celebration for those who everywhere gave their lives, their hopes, their dreams that Hetch Hetchy Valley might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow that valley. The brave men and women, living and dead, who struggled for its preservation and restoration have consecrated that holy temple, far above our poor power to add or detract. John Muir said: “Earth has no sorrow that Earth cannot heal,” so it will little note, nor long remember what was done to it, but it can never forget what those brave women and men did to allow the healing process to begin.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought for that valley’s preservation and restoration have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from those honored women and men we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that those men and women shall not have struggled in vain — that Yosemite National Park shall give birth to a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley — and that national park of all the people — by all the people — for all the people — shall not perish from this Earth.
More Photos of Ron Good as advocate for restoring Hetch Hetchy and as seasonal interpretive Park Ranger:
