Rice-derived high surface area ZnO support (HSA-ZnO) is prepared by a novel thermal decomposition technique using rice grains as a sacrificial exo-template and zinc acetate trihydrate as an ZnO precursor. Further, copper supported HSA-ZnO catalysts with different copper loadings (4, 8, 12 and 16 wt.%) were prepared by using wet impregnation method and characterized by various physicochemical techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), BET surface area, temperature programmed techniques for CO2 desorption (CO2-TPD) and reduction (H2-TPR) and N2O pulse chemisorption measurements. The as-prepared ZnO support material exhibited moderately high surface area of 145 m2/g, which is six times higher than commercial ZnO. The screening of Cu-modified HSA-ZnO catalysts were evaluated in the dehydrogenation of cyclohexanol to cyclohexanone reaction in a continuous flow reactor. In this work, the effect of temperature, the influence of copper loadings and the catalyst stability were thoroughly investigated. The catalyst exhibited varied properties with Cu loading and among the studied catalysts, 12 wt.% Cu/HSA-ZnO catalyst exhibited highest cyclohexanol conversion of 75% and 89% cyclohexanone selectivity was achieved. The results were substantiated and confirmed by N2O pulse chemisorption and temperature programmed studies.