Coan Rush passed away on December 19, 2018, at the age of 73. One of thirteen children, she was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma in 1945, to Marvin and Emma Ellen Clark. She attended high school at Gracemont, Oklahoma and was a graduate of Redlands College of Nursing. She was a mother of 3: Tracie Verkler and Stephanie Jones, both of Kingfisher, and Chlee Rush of Portland, Oregon.

After leaving the farm fields of Caddo County, she moved to Bethany where she married Jim Harris, also from Gracemont. She worked at Deaconess Hospital before shifting into the technical field at Honeywell International Inc., where her math and logical skills were put to use. During her time at Honeywell she was a lead organizer of the labor union and met and married her second husband, Bill Rush.

Following the end of her second marriage, she journeyed to Houston, Texas and set about making a new life for her and the children. She worked for a time for the offshore oil field company SEDCO before settling in as a comptroller for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA.)

True to her sodbuster upbringing, Coan was resilient. Her life took many twists and turns–some with eccentric animation and others out of necessity and desperation but through all of it, she was determined. All beings seek to be noticed in life; however, Coan was not simply noticed but will always be remembered and recalled by those she encountered. You couldn't miss or mistake her for anyone else because of Coan's unique perspective on life.

Coan passes on to her three children and seven grandchildren (Taylor, Magen, Dakota, Samantha, Noah, Abbie, and Kayla) her hard-fought endurance, tender soul and flair for seeking extraordinary in the commonness of the day-to-day.

A graveside celebration of her life will be held at 1:00 at Kingfisher Cemetery on Friday, the 21st of December. The family asks that attendees wear red as an observance to Coan's love of the flashy and exciting.