Donna Rice - Biography

Last Editor: princessj59				Donna Rice Biography -   Name : Donna Rice Known as : Internet safety expert and advocate

Donna Rice Trivia -

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Donna Rice Detailed Biography -

Donna, daughter of William Rice, a federal highway engineer, and Miriam, a secretary, Donna moved from Florida to Atlanta to South Carolina, where she spent her sixth grade through college years. At thirteen she began modeling, doing her first television commercial in ninth grade for Pizza Hut. While at the University of South Carolina, she continued as an honors student and was elected into Phi Beta Kappa my junior year. By senior year, she was elected outstanding senior for her academic performance, as well as being head cheerleader. Shortly thereafter, encouraged by some friends she tried out for the Miss South Carolina World beauty pageant & won and was sent to New York City to compete nationally. She had gone through a lot of guys in the past year, but in 1987, Donna Rice rose to notoriety in the scandal with presidential hopeful Gary Hart. The scandal forced Hart to drop his bid for the 1988 presidential nomination. During the years of unrelenting hounding by the press, Donna chose to retreat from public view. She kept busy, working at a well-respected pharmaceutical company, as well as juggling commercial acting career and a small marketing business. trying to run from her past pain through workaholism and relationships with men. She moved from Washington to California to start a production company, & here met Jack & got married on May 7, 1994. After marriage she moved to Washington & met Dee Jepsen of "Enough Is Enough" who needed help. So her job at "Enough Is Enough!" emerged into handling the campaign's communications and fundraising program. Later, she saw the pornography available on the Internet, grew passionate about taking a stand against it and developed expertise in fighting online pornography. From 1994 until July of 1999, Donna served as Communications Director and Vice President of Enough Is Enough where she played a pioneering role in the national effort to make the Internet safe for children and families. In 1995, she developed and launched a three-pronged strategy that involves the public, the technology industry and law enforcement sharing the responsibility to protect children on the Internet. This approach has been adopted by many industry and government leaders. Donna served on the steering committee for the Internet Online Summit: Focus on Children in December of 1997. She proposed and led the Summit's adoption of an industry "ZERO Tolerance" policy against child pornography, which was endorsed by the White House and the Justice Department. She currently serves on the advisory board for the Get Net Wise initiative.