Ron rice, creator of hawaiian tropic lotion, is dead at 81

Ron rice funeral

Rice, struggling with declining health in recent months, died Thursday in that 12,square-foot beachfront home. He was From a Thursday morning Facebook post: "It is with much sorrow that Ron's family would like everyone to know of his passing this morning. Please allow us privacy in this time of grieving. Ron was loved and admired by many. You could tell a rags-to-riches tale of a poor boy, from a dirt-poor family in the mountains of Asheville, N.

Or a kid who first saw the Atlantic Ocean on a family vacation, immediately grew wide-eyed and vowed to someday return and never leave. Or a struggling local high school science teacher who used his basic chemistry knowledge to strike gold. In many ways, I think he was the original Jed Clampett. He hired a pair of year-old kids to fill the first bottles of his lotion, one bottle at a time, from that garbage can.

Before long, his eight-year career as a local school teacher and assistant football coach was over.