George Rice, editorial commentator for WCCO-TV
Hyfler/Rosner
October 24, 2003 Friday
HEADLINE: OBITUARY: George Rice, 85, was Pioneer Press, WCCO-TV editorialist
BY BILL GARDNER; Pioneer Press
George Rice, a familiar face to many Twin Citians as the editorial
commentator for WCCO-TV in the 1960s and later as an editorial columnist for
the Pioneer Press, died Thursday at his home in Seattle. He was 85.
Rice's liberal opinions spiced the Pioneer Press editorial page from 1973
until he retired in 1983 with a final column that expressed doubts about the
prospect for peace in the Middle East.
After retiring, he and his wife, Elfi, lived in Faribault, Minn., and raised
champion Rottweilers. One of their dogs, Tanker, was the top-ranked
Rottweiler in the nation for a time.
"They still sell Tanker's semen, and the dog has been dead for at least
eight years,'' said one of Rice's sons, Charles. "You talk to anybody in the
Rottweiler world, even if they didn't know who my father was, they'd know
who Tanker was."
As a bald television personality on WCCO for 12 years, Rice appeared with
legendary newscaster Dave Moore and weatherman Bud Kraehling, also
bald-headed. People often stopped him on the street to shake his hand.
Charles Rice told this story:
"Dad was in Germany 15 years after he had been on TV, walking down the
street, and this guy stops him and says, 'I know who you are.' My pop is
kinda pleased that someone would remember him from back then. And the guy
says, 'You're Bud Kraehling.' "
Rice left WCCO in 1970 to run for Congress from the 3rd District as the
Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate and lost a close election to Bill
Frenzel, the Republican.
Rice loved talking to people and was a voracious reader, still reading the
Seattle Times and the New York Times cover to cover until his death.
"He had an incredible ability to make friends with just about anybody,
anyplace," Charles Rice said.
Faith Leonardson, a good friend of Rice's since the mid-1950s, said, "He was
a very easygoing person. He enjoyed people. He really knew his history, and
there wasn't a thing he couldn't discuss."
Rice was also an avid deer and duck hunter and took frequent trips to
Wyoming to hunt deer and antelope.
He and his wife moved to Seattle 11 years ago. He had been in declining
health because of heart problems since February.
He was a graduate of the University of Minnesota and served as a bomb-site
maintenance officer with the Army Air Force during World War II in England.
During the 1950s, Rice also worked as a reporter for the Minneapolis Star
and had a radio talk show on WDGY (now KFAN), where he interviewed such
celebrities as Liberace and Jayne Mansfield.
Rice is survived by his wife, Elfi, Seattle; sons William, Green Bay, Wis.,
and Charles, Bloomington; a daughter, Martha Olson, Luck, Wis., a stepson,
Christopher Terp, Seattle; a brother, Leonard, Columbus, Ohio; and three
grandchildren.
A celebration of his life will be held Sunday at his home in Seattle.