Sharon Rice Obit -- August 5, 2008 -- Collinsville, OK -- www.cvilleok.com

A memorial service will be held for writer and editor Sharon Ruth Cave Rice at 10 a.m. Saturday, August 9, at the Frances Streitel Villa chapel at 2300 West Broadway in Collinsville. Rice died on August 2 at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa of complications from multiple sclerosis.
The daughter of Dorothy and Chester Cave, she was born in Artesia, New Mexico, and grew up in Nowata. She graduated from Nowata High School and attended Tulsa Junior College. After working in data entry for several companies, she became the Oologah-Talala correspondent for The Collinsville News in 1984, where she also worked in advertising sales, layout, typesetting, and proofreading. She wrote some of the historical articles for which The Collinsville News, published by John P. Wright, won the Stanley Draper Distinguished Editorial Award from Oklahoma Historical Society in 1985 and 1986.

Rice was copy editor at the Oklahoma Eagle in Tulsa from 1987 through 1995. She worked as a freelance writer and editor for the Gusher and other publications in Tulsa, and her articles were published in several magazines. In the 1990s, she won several awards for poetry and fiction from Tulsa Friends of the Public Library, Famous Poets Society, the Oklahoma Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and Tulsa Woman News.

The National Humane Education Society named Rice a humane ambassador in 1999 for her work in the rescue and adoption of homeless animals. She was a member of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and First Baptist Church of Sapulpa.

Rice was an American Red Cross blood donor. She enjoyed sewing, reading, and drawing. She was an actress in the Tulsa Easter Pageant at Chandler Park for several years.

Rice lived in rural Oologah for many years before her home was destroyed by the Category 5 tornado that hit the area in April 1991. She then lived in north Tulsa for two years before buying a home in the Vern community on the Sand Springs Line in northwest Tulsa. Because of health problems, she moved to Colonial Manor Nursing Center in Tulsa in 2000 and to Frances Streitel Villa in 2007.

She is survived by her half brother, Bill Cave, and many friends.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her former husband Joe Rice, her longtime companion Clifford Wayne Moore, and her close friend and neighbor Shari Farrar of the Vern community.

Moore’s Funeral Home of Owasso is in charge of arrangements. Memorial donations may be made to animal-welfare organizations.

-- Submitted by H.R. Mills (8/5/2008)