Hugh A. Pennal’s photo ran in the Mineola Monitor at the time he was selected for 1937 all-state honors.

Dr. Pennal’s grave marker in Hawkins Cemetery.

(Monitor photo by John Arbter)

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It is a long way, 17 miles, at least it is when you think about running it. Seventeen miles is about 65% of a marathon and it also happens to be the distance between Hawkins and Mineola.

In the late 1930s, a local football legend was said to have run those 17 miles from his home in Hawkins to attend Mineola High School and play football. Hawkins High School was not established until 1942. 

Hugh Arch Pennal was enshrined in the Mineola High School Hall of Honor in 1990. The plaque commemorating his athletic accomplishments hangs just outside the home side of the Mineola gymnasium. It states “an example of dedication, he jogged 17 miles to his home in Hawkins after practices.”   

Just the thought of a young athlete jogging 17 miles to get home after practice or to get to school at all, has a deep connection in most of us. It belongs in the ethos of growing up, with our parents recounting the difficulties they had to overcome just to get to school.

According to local historian Jim Phillips, it was not unusual for students to travel a good ways to attend Mineola High School. “Mineola High School in the ‘30s was a premier school,” stated Phillips. Graduation programs from those years often annotated from which community the students came. 

In order to validate the claim of the 17-mile run, it would take some legwork and some first-hand knowledge. It was through the graciousness of Pennal’s wife of 52 years, Edythe Novelle (Ponder) Pennal, that we can put this feat into focus.

When posed the critical question of her late husband’s travel to and from Mineola in his high school years, Mrs. Pennal offered a small chuckle and stated, “Goodness no, he stayed most nights during the week with various families in Mineola. He did go home on the weekends, and often he ran.”

Mrs. Pennal, now 91 and residing in Galveston with their daughter Dr. Edythe Harvey, amplified on the story with great detail. She recounted that a bus normally took Hugh to school in Mineola. After athletic practice, it was too late for scheduled buses, so, he hitched down Hwy. 80. “It was a bit different back then,” she shared, “you could hitch your way from town to town.”

She also noted that he often ended up running the distance. “There was not much traffic between Mineola and Hawkins back then,” she remarked, “and he was adamant that his father not burn the gasoline to fetch him.”    

With some solid recollection of events and first-hand knowledge, the story of Hugh Pennal running to play football as a Yellowjacket can be put into proper perspective. As his story unfolds, however, it is clear that he was in many ways larger than life. 

Pennal was a stand-out athlete during a high point in the athletic programs of Mineola High School.  A 1938 graduate, he was named to the all-state team as a senior and was a stand-out performer on the championship team of 1937. Mineola defeated Rockwall that year, 19-6, to take the title. 

In addition to Pennal, five Yellowjacket athletes of that era are in the Hall of Honor: Forrest Lee Covin (1936), Larry Covin (1937), Harden F. Cooper (1939), Glenn Truett Ray (1940) and Ben A. Copass (1941).

At 5’8’’ and 165 pounds, Pennal was amazingly quick and agile. His ferocity earned him the nickname, “the Hawk.” It also earned him a place on the Baylor University Bear football team that following year. Mrs. Pennal recounts that it was in his first scrimmage at Baylor that he broke his collarbone, thus ending his athletic career.   

At Baylor he majored in chemistry with a minor in zoology. The Second World War interrupted his studies. Like his father – who served in France during the First World War – the younger Pennal served as well. He received his U.S. Army Air Corps aviator wings in September 1942 at Brooks Field in San Antonio. 

Over the course of the war, Pennal flew 65 combat missions in fighter-attack aircraft, serving in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. He earned multiple Air Medals for his contributions in the skies over Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean.  

In February 1943 the First Baptist Church of Hawkins did a special service for the young men fighting overseas. At that prayer service Pennal was one of 27 men from Hawkins recognized who were in the war. 

Once home from the front, Pennal did a stint flying around the U.S. supporting war bond drives.

With the return of peace, Pennal recommenced his studies, first at Baylor, then at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He joined the medical practice of two of his uncles in the Panhandle town of Borger, and officially became Doctor Pennal. 

Following his marriage to Hawkins native Edythe Ponder in 1952, the couple was blessed with two children: son Stephen Hugh and daughter Edythe Elizabeth. The family relocated from Borger to Amarillo, and Dr. Pennal began his long career in psychiatry.

The Pennal’s daughter Edythe fondly recalls, “We had to get dressed into our Sunday best when we went with father to the hospital. We were exposed to a hospital setting from a young age, and my father was just a real good role model.” It is little wonder then that son Stephen is now a family practitioner in Indianapolis while Edythe Elizabeth is a practicing psychiatrist in Galveston. 

The medical profession had been in the family for at least the last four generations. “My great grandfather, Isaac Stevens, was a physician,” stated Edythe. She continued, “I guess we do what we are good at.”

Pennal flourished in his Amarillo practice, and he became one of the founding psychiatrists of the Pavilion, a renowned psychiatric care facility of the Northwest Texas Healthcare System. His contributions to the field of psychiatry and to the local community were of such note that Northwest Texas Healthcare along with Texas Tech University and the Texas Panhandle Mental Health Authority created the Hugh A. Pennal lecture series. 

The lecture series was created in 1993 and presented to Dr. Pennal at his retirement. It honored him as a professional and an educator.  The lecture series continues today and is internationally regarded within the psychiatric field.

As Northwest Healthcare Marketing Director Mary Del Toro recently summarized, “Through the Pavilion and the lecture series, Dr. Pennal continues to impact so many people in so many ways.”

Mrs. Pennal illustrated another aspect of her husband’s personality, “He was very humble,” she stated, “and he involved the children in his life.” Although he had a natural affinity for people, which made others want to be around him, she explained his life-long love of reading. 

“He always wanted to buy the books,” she explained. “When I asked him why the library was not good enough, he said that you cannot make notes and dog-ear the pages and underscore words in library books.” 

Daughter Edythe recalls, “He was a true character. He loved life and was always driven to succeed. He helped a lot of people.”

His spouse likewise had an affirmation of his character. “He was a good man and a good doctor,” offered Mrs. Pennal.  

The Pennal home in Hawkins still stands. It is just two blocks off of FM 14 on Pennal Street. You can see the railroad tracks from the front porch. Hugh Pennal’s father was a telegraph operator for the railroad; it is what brought the family to Hawkins.  

It is exactly 18.2 miles from the former Pennal home to the site of the old Mineola High School on Blair Street. Hugh Arch Pennal lies just up the hill in the Ponder section of the Hawkins Cemetery. He would surely smile to look down the hill and see an intrepid young athlete starting off down Hwy. 80.