Zij is getrouwd met Hubert Walter Kooijman.
Zij zijn getrouwd in het jaar 1955, zij was toen 21 jaar oud.
Ruth Marie Kooyman, age 84, died in her home in Athens-Oconee County from a long illness.
She is survived by her husband of 63 years, Mike Kooyman; daughter Holly Beth Richards, son, Mark Emil Kooyman and three grandchildren, Alethia Marie Richards, Zevid Marcus Yale Richards and Lyris Ruth Richards.
Ruth Marie Turin was Born in 1934 and raised in Wickliffe, Ohio, an historic Italian suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1955 she married Mike Kooyman and began a life-long journey of service to her family and to the less than fortunate through her professional nursing career. In her high school days, she was a majorette, an excellent student and a unwavering supporter of her high school and college sports teams
Her love for University of Georgia athletes is attested by the Ruth M. Kooyman room in the Rankin M. Smith Student Athletic Center and by the perpetual scholarship to the UGA Mens Basketball team that shares her name.
While in Athens, she obtained a nursing degree from the Medical College of Georgia SONAT program at the University of Georgia.
Over the next 25 years, Mrs. Kooyman lived in a variety of cities including Athens, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Maysville, where she spent many years serving the poor, aiding the mentally disabled veterans, and as a faculty member of the University of Kentucky.
In 1996, Mike and Ruth Kooyman retired back to the Athens area and dedicated their time supporting University of Georgia student athletes. Mrs. Kooyman provided motherly support, counseled and cooked up some great dinners for several players now playing in the NFL. In addition to her work with UGA athletes, she is remembered for her passion for life, great cooking and needlework crafts many of which received blue ribbon awards in Kentucky, South Carolina and Ohio.
Her legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of everyone she touched, but also those she reached, but never met.