Mary Ann Rush

Mary Ann Sisco Rush passed peacefully surrounded by family on Oct. 8, 2023, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, after a three-month struggle with a series of health challenges. She was 82.

Mary Ann was born on March 23, 1941, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Goldie Leah Ogden Sisco and David Bryan Sisco.

Her formative years in Fort Smith set the stage for her meaningful, adventurous life.

As a child in the 1940s, her family owned and operated a local grocery store and then a vending machine business with locations at gas stations and other businesses around town, where she sampled the stock of candies and donuts. In addition to fostering Mary Ann’s interest in business and economics, during this time she developed a lifelong penchant for favorite sweets, including Mary Janes, Bit-O-Honey, Maple Nut Goodies, Sugar Daddies and pastries of all sorts.

In the early 1950s, her family was one of the first in their neighborhood to purchase a television set. Foreshadowing her future focus on sharing technology, Mary Ann hosted half of her 5th and 6th grade classes at her home on two elementary school field trips to view televised historic events — one to watch Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and one to watch President Eisenhower’s inauguration. When recounting this story, she often expressed a little childhood disappointment about missing out on watching at least one of the events with the other group of kids on the other nearby television set — at the fire station.

A charter member of the Faith Assembly Order of Rainbow Girls, Mary Ann achieved Worthy Advisor status in this leadership training and community service organization for pre-teen and teenage girls, which afforded her skills and experience she called on throughout her life.

She developed her singing abilities through talent shows at Ramsey Junior High School and in the choir at Goddard United Methodist Church. She nurtured her love of warm weather, swimming and adventure during middle and high school summers at the pool and its high dive in Creekmore Park. Her fondness for travel grew with each road trip her mother took her on to California.

Mary Ann graduated from John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, in 1963, with a major in Business Education. She worked 20 hours a week during her time there, earning a work scholarship by serving in the cafeteria and providing administrative support in many offices around campus. She also sang and traveled with the choir.

During her junior year at JBU, she met Clifton Fred Rush. As she recounted in stories of her life she wrote while at home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she went into the student lounge “asking desperately” if anyone would be willing to play 60 hours of tennis with her so she could fulfill her physical education credit during the last six weeks of the semester. Cliff volunteered — even though, as she learned through their time together, he had little depth perception and “occasionally missed the ball when returning a serve!”

Mary Ann and Cliff married on Oct. 18, 1963, in Fort Smith at Goddard United Methodist Church, while Cliff was on a few days of unexpected shore leave from the Navy.

Throughout their 60 years of marriage, Mary Ann and Cliff were known for supporting each other in every endeavor — routine and ambitious. They joined forces to plan and build beautifully artistic home spaces wherever they moved — a farm-house apartment in Newport, Rhode Island; a blue-trimmed house trailer in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which they then moved to Hayes, Kansas; a Cliff-remodeled concrete home in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico; a Cliff-custom built, energy efficient country home in El Dorado, Arkansas; a high-concept home in an architect-developed hillside neighborhood overlooking the Caribbean Sea with a double-barrel roof that evokes a seagull in flight in Fajardo, Puerto Rico; and a cozy home with custom outdoor living space overlooking Lake Catherine in Hot Spring, Arkansas.

Mary Ann was a thoughtful, caring and talented teacher to hundreds of high school, college and middle school students. Her 40-year career teaching business education spanned a period of rapid technological change — from shorthand on stenographer pads to typing on keyboards, from keeping paper ledgers to totaling figures in digital spreadsheets, from writing on chalkboards to delivering PowerPoint presentations, from automating punch cards to programming computers with COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC. She was dedicated to leading and supporting her students and colleagues through this digital transformation, helping them learn and develop lifelong, career-building skills. She was an early member of the Antilles Consolidated Education Association, which advocated for teachers and students.

In Mary Ann’s retirement years, she and Cliff lived in Puerto Rico and Arkansas and traveled extensively. She cared for her grandkids, closely following their activities and development. She loved to read, crochet, work jigsaw puzzles, plan home improvement projects, connect with friends on Facebook and play games on her phone.

Mary Ann is lovingly remembered by her husband, Cliff; son, Joel, his wife, Ali and their children Caleb (18) and Eli (15) of Hot Springs; daughter Leah, her husband Dave and their children Ben (11) and Maisie (7) of St. Louis; and sister Helen Wilson of Fort Smith.

She is preceded in death by her mother Goldie Leah Ogden Sisco Martin; her father David Bryan Sisco; her brothers Johnny Sisco and David Bryan Sisco Jr. (D.B. Junior); and her sister and brother-in-law Virginia (Gin) and Alfred (Al) Wright.

We will gather in celebration of her life on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, at Goddard United Methodist Church, 1922 Dodson Ave, Fort Smith, AR, 72901. Viewing begins at 9 a.m. with the service starting at 9:30 a.m. An interment ceremony at Fort Smith National Cemetery, 522 Garland Ave, Fort Smith, AR, 72901, will be held at 11 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the American Overseas Schools Historical Society (https://aoshs.org/donate/) to honor Mary Ann's 30 years of teaching at Fort Buchanan Antilles High School and Roosevelt Roads Naval Station Middle/High School in Puerto Rico, which are part of the U.S. Department of Defense Educational Activities (DoDEA) program.