Laurel Pennock Scholarship

The Laurel Pennock Scholarship is created for students majoring in Elementary Education at WSU. Students must have a sincere interest in working with elementary age students.

Criteria

1. Each recipient must be an undergraduate student enrolled fulltime (minimum 12 credit hours) at Winona State University
2. Each recipient must be classified as a sophomore, junior, or senior and be in good standing at Winona State University with a minimum grade point average (g. p.a.) of 3.0 (4.0 =A)
3. Each recipient must be a declared major in Winona State University’s Elementary Education Program.
4. Each recipient must have a sincere interest in working with elementary age students .

Biography/Motivation

Laurel M. Pennock was born August 31, 1908, in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, and passed away February 13, 1989, in Rochester, Minnesota. He devoted his life to the filed of education. A 1940 honors graduate of Winona State University, he continued his study at Macalester College earning a M. Ed. degree in 1953, and at George Peabody College for Teachers earning a Ed.S. degree in 1957. He also attended Boston University and the Universities of Colorado, Minnesota and Oregon.

He was a rural school teacher in Grant County, Minnesota from 1927-1930; elementary school principal in Norcross, Minnesota from 1930-1939; mathematics teacher in Rochester, Minnesota from 194-1942; guidance director at Crosby-Ironton, Minnesota from 1942-1947; elementary school principal in Salem, Oregon from 1947-1948; and served as elementary school principal at Hawthorne and Jefferson Elementary Schools in Rochester, Minnesota from 1948-1968.

Early in his elementary administration work, he was instrumental in the formation of the Minnesota Elementary School Principals Association. Leaving Rochester in 1968, he accepted the position Deputy Executive Director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals in Washington, D.C. He was known and respected nationally, He had a remarkable memory for student names and individual stories of students, staff and parents with whom he worked. Laurel Pennock received the Distinguished Alumni Award from WSU in 1986. His other honors included; Who’s Who in American Education; honorary member of the National Congress of P.T.A.‘s; honorary member of the Minnesota Elementary School Principal’s Association; named Pioneer Educator of Minnesota in 1982 by REAM; and past president of the Retired Educators Associations of Minnesota in 1981. He was also awarded honorary memberships in the Elementary/Middle School Principals Association in; South Carolina, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Oregon, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Washington, Montana and New Mexico for his efforts in behalf of elementary school principals.

His community service involvement included: the Salvation Army, Rochester Senior Citizens, Widowed Persons Service, Kiwanis Club, Child Care and Resource Service, Rochester Community Education, Minnesota State Legislative Committee, NRTALAARP, Minnesota Education Association, Retired Educators Association of Minnesota and Minnesota Elementary School Principals Association.

His wife, Ellen, passed away in 1991. His daughter, Susan Pennock McCurdy, and her husband, James, reside in Burnsville, Minnesota with their family.