Theron Hall Rice, Jr. was born in Wetumpka, Alabama on July 8, 1867, the son of Lydia Ann Root and Theron Hall Rice Sr. He attended Ogden College in Bowling Green, Kentucky and received his A.B. from Southwestern Presbyterian University in 1889. He also studied at the University of Virginia and was a graduate from Union Theological Seminary, then at Hampden-Sydney, in 1892. When he transferred to Southwestern, Rice was rushed by every fraternity on campus as a fraternity prospect of unusual promise. He had been won over to Pi Kappa Alpha only after a hard fight, in which tradition says that Theta had the able support of two Pi Kappa Alpha sisters. Rice had been a tower of strength for Theta at a time when Pi Kappa Alpha seemed to be failing. Rice also held Doctor of Divinity degrees from Davidson College and Central University in 1899 and a Doctor of Law degree from King College, in Bristol, Tennessee, in 1918. He was ordained in the Presbyterian ministry in 1892 and served as a pastor of Second Church in Alexandria, Virginia from 1892-96, then pastor of Central Church in Atlanta from 1896-1908. In 1908, he became Professor of English Bible and Pastoral Theology at Union Theological Seminary. After a long bachelorhood, Rice married Elizabeth Matthews Herrand of Crozet, Virginia on May 18, 1913. They had four children. Rice died on August 18, 1922 in Baltimore following three surgical operations for a stomach ailment. His direct cause of death was bronchial trouble, resulting from the effects of ether given in the three operations.