Longtime resident Maggie Champagne owned salon at The Cove Shopping Center
Margaret Rose “Maggie” Champagne, who operated the Champagne Salon and Day Spa in The Cove Shopping Center for more than a decade, died Jan. 4 of apparent heart failure after a short illness. She was 65.
Mrs. Champagne opened her salon in 2007 and had already planned its closing in 2020 when the county and state issued temporary shelter-in-place orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, advancing her retirement by a few months.
She was active in the business community for decades. As a member of the Tiburon-Belvedere Rotary Club, she organized and ran its “Pooch Pageant” fundraiser, held at Strawberry Recreation Center playing field, from 1997 to 1999. She was also a member of the Tiburon Peninsula Chamber of Commerce, hosting at least one of its monthly evening mixers at her salon.
Mrs. Champagne was born May 5, 1956, in Los Angeles, but she moved to Tiburon with her family in 1965. Her father, the late James E. Deitz, was owner and president of Heald Colleges.
She attended the Reed Union School District and graduated from Redwood High School before going on to earn her bachelor’s degree in rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley.
She and her husband, Gary, met while in college and were married in 1979. The couple settled in Tiburon in 1980, buying a house on upper Reed Ranch Road, at the edge of the Ring Mountain preserve.
For a time, Mrs. Champagne taught typing at Heald College and worked as a legal assistant, but then became owner and operator of the Kemp Employment Agency in San Francisco. She gave up her work in the city when she and her husband started a family. Gary Champagne owned Beautyland Beauty Supply in San Francisco from 1983 to 2019.
When her children were in elementary school, Mrs. Champagne coached and managed the Rockets, a Tiburon girls softball team.
After her salon closed, she enjoyed being with her grandchildren, playing pickleball, walking, playing with her dogs and watching Netflix with her husband, Gary said.
In addition to Gary Champagne, Mrs. Champagne is survived by the couple’s two children, Katherine Champagne of Manhattan Beach and Gary J. Champagne of Corte Madera; two grandsons, Gus and Finn Champagne; two siblings, Alice Perez of Lafayette and Jim Deitz of Portland, Ore.; and six nieces and nephews. Her parents, James and Jean Deitz, predeceased her.
Donations in her memory may be sent to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, P.O. Box 22324, New York, NY 10087.
Reach Tiburon reporter Deirdre McCrohan at 415-944-4634.