Raymond Ring

Ray Ring died in Rawlins (Aspen Alley Ranch) on Aug. 27 at age 93. He was born May 2, 1920, of Raymond Ring, Sr., and Esther (Copeland) Ring at Presque Isle, Maine. He graduated from Princeton High School in New Jersey in 1937, attended Cornell and Rutgers universities and graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1944. The next five years were spent as a field geologist for Socony-Vacuum (now Mobil) and the Texas Company (now Texaco) in the Rocky Mountain area and Colombia, South America. He spent the next year as a natural gas evolution geologist for the Federal Power Commission in Washington, D.C. For the next 14 years, he was affiliated with three petroleum-consulting firms in Shreveport, Dallas and Houston, appearing in numerous federal and state hearings and also participating in investigations for private industries and lending agencies. From 1964 until retirement in 1985, Ray performed as director of the Carbon County Department of Public Assistance and Social Services in Rawlins. In 1980, he was honored as outstanding Wyoming County D-Pass director of the year. Ray had been joined to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Geological Societies of Shreveport and Houston, Sigma Chi social fraternity, Gamma Sigma Epsilon national chemical fraternity, Rawlins Elks Lodge 609, Rawlins Lions International and American Legion posts in Louisiana, Texas and as 1967 commander of Rawlins Engstrom-Duncan Post 22. Ray was involved in a multitude of diverse hobbies, mostly related to natural sciences, such as fishing, hunting, camping, rock-hounding, photography, zoology, ornithology, paleontology, botany, mineralogy and entomology. A three-year hitch in the late 1940s with Mobil and Texaco in the Catatumbo jungle of Colombia allowed him to self-net and preserve a spectacular butterfly, moth and exotic insect collection which has been widely exhibited. Ray and oil patch colleagues shared this Colombian jungle with a tribe of very hostile bow and arrow Motilone Indians who had been killing and wounding Europeans from 1532 until contacted by civilized people in 1963. When Ray returned to the U.S. in 1949, he brought two Motilone bows and a couple dozen barbed arrows, which had been released into the oil camp and drilling rigs. To keep updated, Ray maintained membership in four historical and seven archeological societies. The Texas Archaeological Society published four of his papers on sites where occupancies dated from 500 to 3500 years ago. Survivors include his siblings Mary Rich and Donald Ring, of Colorado Springs, Colo.; daughters Linda (Jim) O'Meara, of Littleton, Colo., and Donna Ring of Houston; son Ron Ring of Studio City, Calif.; and "daughter-in-law" Deborah Wilcox and her children Troy (Danielle) and Daisha Wilcox of Rawlins. Ray was preceded in death by his parents Raymond and Esther Ring of Princeton, N.J.; daughter Barbara Bloch of Phoenix; and "godson" Michael A. Wilcox of Rawlins. Pallbearers are Troy Wilcox, Mark Wilcox, Andy Maes, Leonard Cruz, Gerald Snodgrass and Shhon O'Melia.

Service

Friday, August 30, 2013 1:00pm

Visitation

Friday, August 30, 2013 12:00pm - 1:00pm

Interment