Elaine Constance Penner

Elaine Constance Penner, 76, returned to her Lord and Creator on Tuesday, September 28, 2021. She will be dearly missed by her family, relatives and numerous friends. Elaine is survived by her brother, David (spouse: Toni) Rigirozzi, and nephew, Donovan Rigirozzi and was preceded in death by her parents, Dominic and Clara Rigirozzi.

Elaine was born in Hays, KS and at the time of her passing lived in Aurora, CO. She graduated from Choctawhatchee High School in Fort Walton Beach, FL and earned her Bachelors of Arts and Masters in Librarian Science degrees from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. She retired from the U.S. Civil Service as a librarian for the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO after working decades for the USAF there and in San Angelo, TX. Later, she moved to Pueblo, CO and finally to Aurora. She occasionally traveled in her latter years to visit her relatives in AZ, FL, KY, OR and TX and to explore surrounding States. At the time of her passing she had just toured Yellowstone National Park with a close first cousin.

(The rest of the story, as told by her loving brother, David….)

We have all lost a quiet unassuming dear friend with a rich core. Elaine spent her early life in a close-knit USAF family that relocated frequently during the Cold War years. Elaine moved from KS to OK to ME to TX to Panama to HI (where her brother was born) to OK and back to TX (I apologize if I may have left a couple out) before she had even entered high school. During this period of her life she developed a fascination for reading which would drive her career later in life. She was also pretty athletic – most interested in running (like her brother) and swimming (not like her brother). She once told me that it probably evolved that way from her family being stationed at several semi-remote locations where the only friends available to play with were often times, boys. Accompanying the athleticism, however, she developed early stages of hay fever which drastically affected her health throughout her future life.

In 1959, her family moved to Japan where she spent the majority of her high school years. Then the family relocated to Fort Walton Beach, FL where she graduated from high school.

During this time she developed special “negotiating and correctional skills” when she occasionally had to baby-sit her brother (eight years younger and full of P&V at that age). I can remember one critical intervention moment when she finally reached the breaking point; grabbed me by both ankles; lifted me in the air and literally “shook sense into me”. After that, all was right with the world and we remained close to the end.

Following high school, Elaine entered nursing school in Montgomery, AL where she lasted only one year. She was always a care giver but the frequent exposure to critical illness and even death proved to be beyond her emotional limits. She then focused on librarian science where she was instantly a duck in water. In 1971 she earned degrees from the University of Oklahoma and married her life-long soul mate, Jeremy Penner in Oklahoma City.

The couple almost immediately moved to the Washington, DC area as her new husband had grown up along the East Coast. Interestingly Elaine, rather than immediately pursuing librarian employment, instead signed up with a private environmental consulting firm that worked regularly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on remedial projects. She told me that her exposure to the contracts for this employer taught her valuable managerial skills that would eventually benefit her when she transitioned to a library environment and had to holistically assess a library’s physical space and content needs.

In the late 1970s Elaine and Jeremy relocated to Elaine’s part of the world, the Dallas-Fort Worth area where she decided to enter U.S. Civil Service (similar to her father’s career track after leaving USAF active duty). Her first assignment was the library at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, TX. The library at Goodfellow was not just any typical AFB library as this base was part of Air Education and Training Command and Goodfellow's primary mission was cryptologic and intelligence training for all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense. Sadly, Elaine lost her husband in the late 1990s after a long bout with Parkinson’s disease during this period of her life which eventually left her quite exhausted, both physically and emotionally.

She then elected to move close to her parents and brother in the Colorado Springs area; sold her home in San Angelo and transferred to the U.S. Air Force Academy library where she worked until she retired in the early 2000s.

Elaine entered a new journey in her life around this time as she lost both parents, first her father in 2003 and then her mother in 2004. Elaine’s age and health limitations due to numerous allergies now became major considerations that eventually drove her to decide to move to the warmer and lower elevation climate of the Pueblo area in southern Colorado. She bought a small home/acreage in Pueblo West shortly after 2005; focused on rebuilding her health and seriously took up gardening which had always been her number one hobby in life. This lead her to join the local herbal society where she made new friends with a common

interest in gardening, especially with plant species associated with a semi-arid environment.

She seemed to enjoy several good years with the herbal society members where she attended seminars; gave tutorial presentations; assisted annual plant sales and participated in other related local community events. One commonality with the society was the advanced age of most of its members which ultimately caused the group to go separate ways. This was unfortunate for Elaine as, a product of a transient childhood, she lost another needed measure of stability in her life.

Elaine’s physical condition then seemed to slowly deteriorate with her advancing age and her lifelong struggle with allergies and their effect on her touchy immune system. During this period she tried to simplify her life (including her gardening) and almost weekly met with her brother’s family to share good cuisine (at which she could definitely hold her own against the best) and stories. She also explored relocating again to a milder climate at lower altitude.

In the end, she elected instead to give up the acreage and move into a, 2,500+ unit, long-established, senior-friendly condominium community in Aurora. Her new living quarters were on the third floor and included an enclosed private lanai overlooking one of the greens of the community’s golf course. Shortly after she had moved into the complex tragedy struck, however, and she was involved in an automobile accident that left her in a lingering state of pain and greatly hampered her mobility. Elaine eventually traveled with a first cousin to see Yellowstone National Park during August, 2021 but apparently they contracted Covid-19 during the trip which aggravated her other health problems and caused her to spend her final days at the Cheyenne Regional Memorial Hospital. Elaine’s plan was always to incrementally overcome all the adversity; eventually regain her mobility and enjoy the offerings of her condominium community. It is so sad that this regretfully was not dealt in the cards.

It’s hard to assign the true merit of a person’s life in a few simple words and Elaine’s life is a case in point. She wasn’t a Hollywood diva yet she still managed to touch everyone’s life that she encountered with love, energy, and understanding while also trying to share the wisdom of her own life experiences. She also always looked only at the full half of the glass – right up to her last moments. Even though with her passing another flickering candle has been extinguished to the night, there is some solace that her life’s journey has taken her to her final resting place with her husband and her father-in-law in San Angelo. Her legacy lives on in the people she inspired and that lives on forever. Rest in peace, Elaine!

Elaine’s remains have been interred at Johnson’s Lawnhaven Memorial Gardens, located at 4989 FM Highway 1223, San Angelo, TX 76905. For more information in this regard, please consult with their very gracious staff at (325) 944-5000 and at www.johnsonslawnhaven.com.