Margaret Leigh Reece, 57, passed away peacefully on August 16th, 2026, early in the morning, surrounded by her loving family. 

Born in 1969, Leigh grew up in Oklahoma City, where she played soccer, modeled, and enjoyed hanging out with her friends. She graduated from Bishop McGuinness High School in 1987. After she spent two years at Oklahoma University, she pursued her love of Fine Arts instilled in her by her parents and graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in art history in 1991. While in New York, she interned for Elle magazine and the Sally Jesse Raphael TV Show and, post-graduation, spent her next few years in Dallas, Texas with Dallas Fanfares as a meeting and event planner. 

When she moved home to Oklahoma City, she began teaching aerobics at the YMCA and soon, with a passion and love for teaching, continued her fitness education with the Pilates Center in Boulder, Colorado for nearly two decades. First a student, then a teacher, she continued her postgraduate studies and became a Licensed Teacher Trainer to instruct other teachers. She moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado in 2010, and opened her own Pilates studio there. Again, she would return home and reopen Pure Pilates in Oklahoma City. Her gift of teaching and her delicate eye for the language of the movement, she passed on to her son, who taught Pilates with her. 

When her children left for college, she spent hours on the road with her husband, David, present at her children’s collegiate sports; her daughters’ soccer games in North Carolina and Shawnee, Oklahoma, and her son’s football games in Iowa. She was her daughters' first soccer coach and pursued her passion of soccer through them from childhood to the college pitch to the professional ranks in Australia. Her dreams were her children’s dreams, and she sacrificed so they could achieve them. 

David was more than her husband; he was Leigh’s best friend, traveling companion, Sooner fanatic, and lifelong Bible study partner. It was rare to ever see David and Leigh apart for more than a few hours. They were joined at the hip, or as David said, to his rib. Wherever her treatments led them — MD Anderson, or Sanoviv Medical Clinic, or Integris Hospital — David and Leigh were at each other’s sides until the end. 

Leigh was a pillar of a community she built through her care and healing of hurting people. With the focus she gave to each person, she made them feel seen, mentored, and understood. She loved through teaching and brought the comfort and peace she loved so much into her studio, her family, her friends, and each person in the world she touched. 

Leigh was preceded in death by her father, Andrew Haswell, and her mother, Martha Baldwin Beveridge. She is survived by her husband David, her three children — her twin daughters, Holland and Eden, and her son Canon — her sisters Lucie Voves and Susan Shields, and her second mother, Dr. Barbara Bonner. Her ceremony will be held September 8th at 1:00 pm at All Souls Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City.

In Lieu of flowers or food, please help save a life by donating to Free to Live Animal Sanctuary (freetoliveok.org) and/or wildkittykrew.org.