Sharon Rock Rugg, LCSW, CT, RPT, age 76 of Gainesville GA, left this life for the next on Friday, November 1, 2024. She is survived by her loving husband of 54 years, Ed Rugg, her older and younger sisters, Pam Cormany and Brenda West, her son, Brian, and daughter, Julie, and their spouses, as well as six grandchildren. Born in Macon, GA to Mary Jean and Bob Rock, Sharon was raised in Chillicothe OH and Rome GA with family ties to Massachusetts—Cape Cod was a favorite travel destination. She met and fell in love with Ed at Florida Presbyterian College in St. Petersburg early in 1969, and they married a year and a half later. Their first home was a tiny, but cozy, rented farmhouse several blocks from Tampa Bay. Their first major purchase together was a used ski boat that they took out often to explore the Bay’s islands, wildlife, and sunsets. That was the first of many boats they owned together as they both loved lake life, camping lakeside, and teaching friends to ski from dawn to dusk. In Nashville, they completed their graduate degree programs in 1975, bought their first home, and had their first child. They also began a life-long string of memorable national and international travel adventures. Sharon’s career began in public welfare social services followed by a challenging position in child protective services. She subsequently completed her master’s degree in social work at the University of Tennessee—Nashville Branch and became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker two years later. Early in her career, she held psychiatric social work positions at two university hospitals in Nashville and taught undergraduate social work majors for two years at Ole Miss. After relocating with Ed and two young children from Mississippi to Marietta, GA in 1982, she shifted roles to become a super mom, serving as her children’s chief soccer and swim team supporter, Cub Scout and Girl Scout leader, Elementary School PTA President, and environmental education advocate for Cobb County schools. She was also an avid ALTA tennis player earning several championship bag tags. Once the children were older, Sharon resumed her professional work as a Hospice Social Worker and acquired additional credentials as a Certified Thanantologist and Registered Play Therapist. That led to her greatest passion and the pinnacle of her professional career when she established and grew her private practice, Rising Sun Center for Loss and Renewal. For three decades, Sharon assisted hundreds of grieving children and their families work through life-threatening illnesses and issues of loss and grief. She created, published, and sold a number of popular therapeutic grief materials and games for children, parents, and helping professionals and conducted numerous grief groups. She was a featured presenter on loss and bereavement counseling at many national professional development conferences. Her Healing Hearts game was especially popular. It helped children open up and express their feelings and experiences on one of a dozen different types of loss and grief when playing it with a parent or counselor. One of Sharon’s former distributors updated the game’s format in 2023 and continues to market Healing Hearts. Her “full retirement” came in 2023 when the Rising Sun Center website was taken down. Since 2013, Sharon and Ed have felt truly blessed by God to be led to Gainesville where they thoroughly enjoyed living in their dream-home on Lake Lanier and boating with friends and family. Here, they also found excellent heart hospital care and an exceptionally welcoming and mission-minded church family. A Celebration of Life service for Sharon will be held at First Presbyterian Church of Gainesville. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Operation Christmas Child at Samaritan’s Purse, for which Sharon passionately packed numerous shoeboxes year-round.
Little & Davenport Funeral Home in Gainesville is handling final arrangements. Condolences may be left on the website at
www.littledavenport.com
