Mary Louise (Fellers) Pennington, 97, a longtime resident of Graham County, died Nov. 24, 2024 in Broomfield, CO.
Mary Lou was born on Aug. 9, 1927 in Hays, KS to Harvey Webster Fellers and Mary A. (Dague) Fellers, the fifth of six children.
Mary Lou graduated from Hays High School in May 1945, four months before the end of World War II. She enrolled that fall at Fort Hays State College where she developed her lifelong passion for English literature and grammar.
At Fort Hays, Mary Lou was president of Women’s Leadership, the feature writer for the college newspaper and a member of the Delta Sigma Epsilon sorority. She was also a Tigerette, a member of the student council and played violin in the college orchestra. She also played the female lead in several college theater productions, receiving critical acclaim.
While in college, Mary Lou met the love of her life, Russell Pennington, who was attending college after having served in the U.S. Navy. They were married on Aug. 25, 1949, shortly after her college graduation, in the Hays United Methodist Church. It was a marriage that would last 73 years until Russell’s death in February 2023.
After Russell’s graduation the following year, they moved to Rozel, Kansas where Mary Lou taught high school English and Russell was principal of the grade school.
After three years in Rozel, they moved to the Pennington family farm north of Bogue so Russell could share farming responsibilities with his brother, Walter. Here, Russell and Mary Lou began a family: Russell Mark was born in 1954 and William Dane was born in 1956. The young family moved to Bogue in the spring of 1958. They built their “forever” home in Bogue in 1961 and lived in it for 58 years.
Also in 1961, Mary Lou began teaching English literature at Palco High School, which she enjoyed immensely. She loved her students and they loved her back. She not only instilled in her students a love of great literature, but, because she was among the youngest teachers on staff, she was frequently sought out for advice on how to handle a student’s latest relationship crisis.
In 1964, she began teaching 7th and 8th grade English literature and grammar in the Bogue Grade School. Thus began generations of Bogue students who, for the first five minutes of every class, listened to Mary Lou read “Old Yeller” and “Savage Sam” in seventh grade. In eighth grade, at her request to the school board, her students made the leap to reading Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” For the rest of her life, on each March 15, Mary Lou would hear former students shout, “Mrs. Pennington! It’s the Ides of March!” She loved it.
After retiring from teaching full-time in 1990, Mary Lou was a substitute teacher at the Bogue Grade School and Hill City High School where she exposed another generation of students to good grammar and great literature.
Because of their advancing age, in June 2019 Mary Lou and Russell moved to the Sunrise Assisted Living facility in Broomfield, CO, just four blocks from their son and daughter-in-law, Dane and Sandy.
Mary Lou was an avid reader and enjoyed memorizing poetry. Well into her 90s she could recite by heart the 1,000-word epic poem, The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes. On her deathbed, she mouthed the words as her sons and grandsons read the poem to her.
Mary Lou was a member of the Bogue United Methodist Church. She often said her favorite scripture was the 23rd Psalm, especially the line “My cup runneth over.” She served on the church’s administrative council as well as on the board of trustees. She taught the adult Builders’ Sunday School Class for 58 years. She served on the Bogue City Council, the Graham County Arts Council and the Graham County Library Board. She served as a state officer of the Kansas Rural Letter Carriers Auxiliary. Mary Lou was a member of the Bogue TPM Club, the United Methodist Women and Delta Kappa Gamma.
Survivors include Mark and his wife, Josie, of Pittsburgh, PA; Dane and his wife, Sandy, of Superior, CO, and their three sons: Grant; Tyler and his wife, Brittany; Connor and his wife, Rachael, and their toddler son Grady. All three grandsons live in the Denver area.
Preceding Mary Lou in death were her husband, Russell; her parents, Harvey and Mary Fellers; her sisters, Ila Fern Crumrine, Marjorie Mowry, Dorothy Hill and Winnie Rector, and her brother, Warren.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024 at the Bogue United Methodist Church with Pastor Julie Truhlar and Mary Lou’s nephew, Steve Hill, officiating. The public is invited for a final viewing at 9:15 a.m. at the church, prior to the service.
Burial will be in the Wildhorse Township Cemetery in Bogue. Memorials may be given to the Bogue United Methodist Church, Bogue, Kansas, 67625.