Ballinger, Rhonda March 2, 1950 - March 5, 2025

Rhonda Ballinger passed away on March 5, 2025, in Mount Vernon, New York. Born on March 2, 1950, in Chicago, she spent most of her life in Southern California. Rhonda graduated from Louisville High School Woodland Hills in 1968 and earned a degree in Political Science from Mount St. Mary’s College Brentwood in 1973. Geopolitics remained a lifelong passion; always well-informed and witty, she never shied away from having a good policy debate.

Rhonda’s artistic eye was complimented by a savvy sense of quality. The combination fueled her successful career in the fashion industry, first as a retail buyer and later in clothing manufacturing. She always had an opinion about what would look good on you, and if you were smart, you listened.

Rhonda managed to extract both good times and good stories from the journeys to dozens of countries across five continents. She could make an airplane passenger mutiny sound like as much fun as a trek to see the Northern Lights, and send back equally beautiful photos from Scandinavian grocery stores and the Thai countryside.

Rhonda liked getting the last word, and in the email signature quote she adopted for the final months of her life, she found perhaps the best one: “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” — Douglas Adams

Rhonda is survived by her sister, Susan Ballinger of New York City.