City's oldest tanning salon closing its doors

Keith Lawrence, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.
·2 min read

Jun. 19—Owensboro's oldest tanning business is closing on July 31.

Dee Ann Rice, owner of Oasis Tanning Salon, 325 Park Plaza Drive, is retiring.

She's decided not to sell the business, which she and her late husband, Tommy, started in 1985.

He died on Sept. 24, 2020, at 63.

Rice said she didn't want the business to go on without them.

"I wanted to preserve Oasis Tanning Salon in his memory," she said. "Tommy and I started this business from nothing and built it to what it is today."

It just wouldn't be the same if someone else was running the business, Rice said.

Retiring and closing the business, she said, is bittersweet.

"It's the end of an era," Rice said.

Over the past 35 years, she's seen customers who started coming there as teens grow up and have children and bring them there when they were teens.

"It's been part of my children's and my grandchildren's lives," Rice said. "But times are different."

Tommy Rice had started selling tanning beds in 1983.

"I delivered them to beauty shops, all sorts of places," he said in 2018. "You would even see them in gas stations back then. I started hearing how much money people were making with them. So, we decided to try it."

In 1985, he and his wife started Oasis Tanning Salon with three tanning beds in an old house on Frederica Street where Walgreens is today.

In 1996, they moved their business to 325 Park Plaza Drive.

By 2018, when readers of the Messenger-Inquirer voted Oasis their favorite tanning salon, it had grown to 23 beds.

Spray tanning had become 15% to 20% of the business by then.

Tommy Rice said then, "There's always been a certain type of woman who is a sun worshiper. In the past, some people took it to the extreme. They would come here and go to two other places the same day. Now, most come in a couple of times a week. We offer a controlled environment."

Some people, he said, use the tanning beds for light therapy in the winter.

"This was an awesome ride, and this wasn't an easy decision," Dee Ann Rice said on Facebook. "Thanks again for all the love & support you have shown us these past 38 years of business!"

Keith Lawrence, 270-691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com