Cecile Searson Holmes

Cecile Searson Holmes, an award-winning journalist, author, and academic whose mission in life was to serve as a bridge of understanding between cultures and religions, died Thursday, September 29, 2022 at a hospital in Columbia, S.C. She was 67.

Known for her boundless energy, humor, curiosity, and passion for helping others in their life, faith, and spiritual journeys, Cecile was the former head of the journalism sequence at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications. She authored two nonfiction books, one on Southern survivors of the Holocaust and a second on women’s spirituality.

After graduating from USC in 1977, she was a news and feature writer for the Greensboro News & Record in central North Carolina. Young and determined, she convinced higher-ups that the paper needed a full-time reporter covering religion, churches and spiritually and a position was created for her. She moved to the Houston Chronicle in 1987, serving as the religion editor for the newspaper for 13 years.

At the Chronicle, Cecile traveled around the world reporting on religion, filing stories from the Caribbean, Israel, Jordan, Mexico, and the Vatican. Career highlights included interviews with former President Jimmy Carter and evangelist Billy Graham about their personal faith journeys. In the late 1980s, she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a multi-part news series on televangelism that explored the PTL scandal of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, evangelist Jerry Falwell’s emergence as a leader of the Christian Right and the “700 Club” TV star Pat Robertson. She also accompanied Pope John Paul II on his historic flight to Cuba and later interviewed the Pope at the Vatican.

A longtime correspondent for the Religion News Service, Cecile served as president of the Religion News Association from 1996 to 1998 and received the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

Cecile and her late husband, Jace Holloman, moved back to her native Columbia in 2000 when she joined the faculty at USC. A tireless advocate for aspiring journalists, she taught advanced writing classes and developed new courses for senior and graduate-level journalism/mass communication students, including one on faith, values, and the mass media. She also continued to write for a variety of local and national publications, including Columbia Living Magazine and the United Methodist Interpreter.

While living in Columbia, Holmes became deeply involved in her religious explorations at her church, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and worked with other community representatives on cross-cultural efforts in interfaith and race relations. She helped found Women of Many Faiths in Columbia and served on the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Work Group of the S.C. Christian Action Council.

Cecile married her beloved husband, Jace, in 1997. Though they came from vastly different backgrounds, the two shared the same generous spirit, keen sense of humor and passion for life’s twists and turns. Jace’s death in 2009 left a void in Cecile’s life that could not be filled until she joined him in heaven.

She also was preceded in death by her parents, James G. and Anne Searson Holmes.

Cecile is survived by her sister, Anne H. “Nancy” LeBoeuf; her brother, James G. Holmes; nieces Caroline LeBouef, Anna Mass (and spouse Ian), and Isabel Holmes; grand-niece Lucille Mass; stepmother Arlene Holmes; stepsister Laura Masem and step-niece Leanne Solomon (and spouse Billy). She was an honorary aunt to Jonathan and Alexandria Parker and honorary grandmother to Savannah. She was godmother and “Aunt Cecile” to Jackson and Britt Sain of Richmond, Va.

Someone who never met a stranger, Cecile had a large contingent of friends, colleagues and extended family who will miss her. She also was a loving “mother” to the Boston Terriers who preceded her in death: Tiny, Fritz, One-Eyed Petey, Trixie and Gabe.

A Celebration of Life will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday, November 5 in Columbia. Details and location are to be determined.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Cecile’s honor to the Religion News Association in support of its work on behalf of journalists across the U.S. Address: P.O. Box 370258, Brooklyn, N.Y., 11237

Donations also can be made online to the Association on American Indian Affairs www.indian-affairs.org. Please note “Student Scholarship” on your donation.