He is still a nice, down-to-earth fellow who appreciates his lot in life and wants to do something for his fellow man.” Trip to Hawaii was keyĪnother Citizen Times story, from 1993, noted Rice was back in town then to attend a fundraiser for the Asheville City and Buncombe County Schools Foundation. Terrell wrapped up by saying Rice “made his millions without letting a single dollar go to his head. Over the years we haven’t changed the formula or the label.” "That product I mixed in that galvanized can back in 1966 was evidently the right one,” Rice said. Rice also believed "in riding a good horse all the way" and not messing with the formula for success. Terrell also noted that Rice, as a good friend of actor Burt Reynolds, had no problem getting the brand name in almost all of Reynolds’ movies. More: George Cecil, Vanderbilt's grandson and Biltmore Farms owner, dies at 95 A lot of them were teachers, coaches and lifeguards with whom I worked, who came with me because they believed what I was doing would be successful.” What is important is seeing that my people make money – those who were pushing when I was pulling. “I have enough to buy anything I want,” Rice said.
By 1983, Rice told Terrell, he didn’t need any more money. The company went on to establish factories around the world. “But that year I saw there was nothing to worry about, so I quit worrying and began enjoying things.” “I was always worried and even paranoid till then,” Rice told Terrell.
Terrell noted that Rice whipped up his first batch of suntan oil in a galvanized garbage can, and while sales were slow initially, by 1970, he knew the company was going to hit the bigtime. In 1966, Clyde Rice loaned his son $500 to get the suntan lotion business going. While the family wasn't wealthy, they could afford a trip to Florida when Ron Rice was a kid, and that instilled a lifelong love of the beach in the youngster. Rice's father worked as an engineer at the former American Enka rayon plant in Buncombe County. My brother, Crosby, and my sister, Barbara, worked for me, keeping the stand supplied.” I sold peaches, strawberries, gooseberries, even live rabbits. “I had my own cider mill,” Rice said, "and kept my own bees for honey. More: Karen Cragnolin, Asheville pioneer of river revitalization and RiverLink, dead at 72 He started working when he was just 5 years old. In a 1983 interview with the late Citizen Times columnist Bob Terrell, Rice told the paper he grew up in Haw Creek and operated a roadside stand in the summers near the Dreamland Drive-In Theater in East Asheville, where a Lowe’s Home Improvement store stands now.
He ended up at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, earning a degree in science. Ron Rice died May 26 in his 12,000-square-foot home just north of Daytona Beach, Florida, according to news reports.Ī 1958 graduate of Lee Edwards High School (now Asheville High), where he played football, Rice left Asheville, first to attend Western Carolina University, according to Citizen Times news stories. He was 81.Ī promotional wizard with a knack for gaining attention through beauty pageants and auto racing, Rice was born in Asheville in September 1940, the son of Clyde and Pauline Crosby Rice. Ron Rice, an Asheville native who grew up dirt poor but went on to rub elbows with the rich and famous after creating Hawaiian Tropic suntan lotion, has died.
0 kommentar(er)
