Foundation founder won’t be attending Richard III’s reburial

Next Thursday, Richard III will be reinterred at Leicester Cathedral.

And this has what to do with Las Vegas?

Well, a woman named Joe Ann Ricca lives here, and more than 20 years ago, she formed an international society called the Richard III Foundation, which has about 400 members.

She was invited to attend, though she favored another burial site in York.

I met her last September and wrote about her lifelong passion for medieval history and the ongoing controversy of where Richard Plantagenet should be reinterred.

His remains had been located under a Leicester parking lot in August 2012, and the furor over where he should be buried for a second time created quite the brouhaha. The city of Leicester wanted him reburied there, realizing what a tourist draw it would make the city.

Ricca was among those who supported the idea of burying him in York, 100 miles north of London, where before his death during the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, he said he wanted to be buried.

Finders keepers prevailed. An elaborate ceremony will be held March 26 at Leicester Cathedral.

I hoped Ricca would be there.

She was invited, but she’s not going.

Her foundation has an annual conference every year in October, and she couldn’t afford the costs of two trips to England within one year. The executive assistant at Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and her husband understandably decided it would be too costly. Plus with her job, it would be difficult to get the time off. So she offered her two tickets to two British members of the foundation — Keith Randon and Robert Grange.

“I was honored I was invited,” she said, “but the joy in their voices, made me happy I was able to do this for them.”

Plus, she would rather go when it is less crowded. She expects the event to be “crazy with people.”

Randon, 74, retired from his air pollution control equipment business 10 years ago, lives in a village called Woodhouse Eaves, not far from a hunting box for King John and 12 miles from Leicester and close to Bradgate Park.

England just reeks history, and clever names.

Since selling his business, Randon has had time to enjoy his interest in history. Several years ago he attended one of the Richard III Foundation conferences, which he called his “awakening” to England’s late medieval period.

“I never thought I would attend our former King’s reinterment,” he wrote in an email. “It was something for powerful and influential people. Even now, some time after Joe Ann told me that my name would go forward, it seems quite unbelievable, even though I now hold the admission card to witness the first burial of a King in England for over 50 years.”

Randon continued, “To attend this, so kindly facilitated for me by the head of the Foundation, will be one of the true highlights of my life, along with my wedding day and the birth of each of our two children.”

Grange, 76, a retired actor, lives in a small village called Creaton, and wrote me he has been “fascinated by the life of Richard III since the mid-1950s when, like so many others, I came to the subject via the Olivier film, Josephine Tey’s novel ‘The Daughter of Time’ and Paul Murray Kendall’s seminal biography. Over time, what started as an interest grew to something akin to an obsession.”

He described his reaction to Ricca’s invitation “as if all my Christmases had come at once.”

“It must be difficult for the layman to understand what this event it means to Ricardians everywhere,” Grange wrote. “Never did I think that I would live to see the king’s remains found, identified, and re-interred with respect and honour. That I might be present when it happened was too far-fetched to have entered my mind.”

The Leicester Cathedral website calls the reinterment of the last Plantagenet King of England “an event of national and international importance.”

The costs are in the millions.

In England, the reinternment is being compared to a royal wedding with all the pageantry that accompanies such an event.

His bones will lie in state for three days before the actual burial. The events leading up to the burial are expected to be televised, and media from all over the world will be there.

William Shakespeare’s play “Richard III,” which many Ricardians revile because the king comes across as a villain, will be analyzed in detail. Did Richard kill the young princes as Shakespeare suggested? There is plenty of history and mystery about the man. Inevitably, some media types will go for the only Shakespearean line they remember from Shakespeare’s play, “A horse. A horse. My kingdom for a horse.”

Ricca scorns the play for making Richard a villain, challenging the historical accuracy.

For her, Richard was an admirable man of loyalty and commitment. And her job is to help restore his reputation, even without going to his second burial.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Thursdays. Email her at jmorrison@reviewjournal.com or leave a message at 702-383-0275. Find her on Twitter @janeannmorrison