William Pennebaker

The fourth of seven children, Bill grew up in Dallas and New Orleans then headed east for college. He graduated from Harvard in 1940 then entered Yale Law School. In 1941, he drove from New England to New Orleans in a Model T to report to the draft board. He was too short for the Naval Air Corps and barely passed the Army Air Corps physical because of low blood pressure.

After graduating at the top of his class in flight school, he was named second in command of the 390th Bomb Group in 1943. From Parham, England, he led 44 bombing missions into France and Germany through March 1945, when he left the Army Air Corp as a Lieutenant Colonel.

After the war, Bill graduated from Yale Law in 1947 and took a job in Shell’s new office in Midland. The city’s population was 8,000 then. He joined the law firm of Stubbeman, McRae and Sealy in 1951, where he worked as a partner till he completely retired in his 80s. Bill specialized in oil and gas, corporate and transactional matters, and estate and probate, and was a mentor to many of today’s senior lawyers in Midland and around the state.

Bill and his wife Elizabeth (Liz) Whiting, whom he’d met in Cambridge, MA, were married in 1948 and enjoyed an active social and cultural life in the oil boomtown. Liz Pennebaker was one of the founders of Midland’s Community Chest which later became the United Way of Midland; she was also active as an actress in Midland theater.

Bill, along with Art Cole, Norris Creath and Bill Pomeroy, met in 1947 to create a fundraiser for Midland Community Theatre. They founded the Midland Summer Mummers, which still thrives today. He also served multiple terms on the Board of Governors of MCT, was chairman of the Board of Governors for the Midland Memorial Hospital, and participated on the boards of the Petroleum Museum and other local organizations. For the last two decades of his life, he was particularly active with the 390th Veterans Association and also the 390th Memorial Museum in Tucson to honor the air campaign over Europe in World War II.

The Pennebaker family expanded with Jamie’s birth in 1950, Ward’s in 1953, and Mary’s in 1956. Bill aided and abetted his children’s escapades with natural gas balloons, which were sometimes connected by a fuse to a lit cigarette for eventual ignition in the air. Owing to a slight mathematical miscalculation, young Mary was almost sent up in one of these would-be infernos. (Childhood in the ‘50s was more precarious and a lot more fun.) In all of his children, Bill encouraged intellectual curiosity, healthy skepticism, a sense of adventure, and a stubborn preference for used over new cars.

After Liz’s death in 1990, Bill organized a number of rafting trips at Big Bend, leading the way in an ancient Suburban with four bald tires. He married Dorothy Applegate in 1993. The two traveled frequently and split their time between her house in Charleston, S.C. and his in Midland. Dorothy Pennebaker predeceased him in 2013.

Bill is survived by two sons, Jamie (and wife Ruth) in Austin and Ward (Susan) in Houston, his daughter Mary (Jim) in Midland, his grandchildren Teal (Bennett) in Seattle, Nicholas in Chicago, and Drew (Louise) and Matt (Lyndsay) in Houston, along with four great-grandchildren. His older brother Eugene and younger sister Mary also survive him.

A memorial service will be held for Bill Pennebaker on Saturday afternoon, October 29th, at the Midland Community Theater at 2:00pm.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Midland Community Theater at 2000 W. Wadley, Midland, Texas 79705 or to the Midland Memorial Foundation, at 400 Rosalind Redfern Grover Parkway, Midland, Texas 79701 www.midland-memorial.com/ways-to-give or to a charity of your choice in your community.

Bill Pennebaker was devoted to his community, which might explain why a man who loved sailing as much as he did spent so many decades in West Texas. Remember him when you throw popcorn and hiss at the next Summer Mummers or notice an unexplained explosion in the sky.