Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Article Image Alt Text
  • Article Image Alt Text
    Pennye Graves volunteers all around the Wimberley Valley helping visitors and locals alike. PHOTO BY GARY ZUPANCIC/WIMBERLEY VIEW

Find Graves volunteering around town

Let’s face it; living in the Wimberley Valley has an effect on all who move here. It happens and you don’t even realize it. Maybe it’s just being out in the country, but it seems people around here care more about nature and helping neighbors in need. Retaining the character of those who came before us who depended on each other just to survive.

Residing on the banks of the Cypress Creek and the Blanco River, volunteering and helping others was and still is a way of life in Wimberley. There are many individuals who go unheralded in lending their talents to help the community. Pennye Graves is one of those individuals.

Pennye’s talents have been showcased in productions of the Wimberley Players, and she is not an actor. If you’re a visitor to Wimberley, she’ll tell you where to go (in a nice way) and you might hear her ask ‘can I help you’ at the Senior Thrift Shoppe. That’s Pennye, who has more energy than someone half her age, really.

“I have to be busy. I can’t sit until it’s dark,” Pennye said.

Raised in Midland and a Midland High School graduate, she attended Texas Tech majoring in Interior Design. She married Frank and at the time companies moved geologists a lot. Soon Pennye found herself around the country including Casper, Wyoming and Shreveport, Louisiana, an hour from the Texas border. “I enjoyed being south.” Finally they moved back to Dallas. She became licensed and was able to utilize her degree after the two kids were teenagers.

“A church friend had a house near Blue Hole. We brought the kids and came for Thanksgiving. We fell in love with Wimberley. We came several more times to visit and said “this is the place.’”

They moved here, and the first place she volunteered was close to her heart, a place to utilize her talents as a licensed Interior Designer. The Wimberley Players soon got a professional touch on set design from her talents. At the time, she had two shops in town, Blue Willow and Home Sweet Home.

Soon her expertise was noticed, and she became in charge of props. “With the Wimberley Players it’s work, work, work. They’re great people. They are mostly fellows. They have more muscle. It’s so nice. I really enjoy it.” Building sets, and then staging them came about with a director.

“One darn fellow came up with the most ridiculous ideas. I drew up plans and gave them to the director. He loved them.” She gets lunch for the guys when they’re shut down, works on props and other duties.

When the Players season ended, “I wanted a little more going on and somebody said, the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitor Center always need help and I’ve enjoyed it… There are so many visitors, wide eyed when they come in. ‘What can we do?’ It’s always real pleasant and fun.”

As for volunteering at the at the Senior Thrift Shoppe.

“Roberta Holland and Sissy Dupre asked me to volunteer,” she said. One memorable day was the day the store was robbed. “They came in the front, grabbed the cash register and ran off. They were caught at Flite Acres, and we got it back. They threw it out the window.” The register had to be replaced. Life in a small town that is Wimberley, that’s big news, but most of the time the experiences have been more positive. “I’ve met so many nice people here. I like it. There are so many neat people. We’re close to the big city, Austin and San Antonio if you want to go shopping, and yet it’s a small town. The grocery store is five minutes away.” Still in love with Wimberley, her goal is to, “Stay busy as long as I am able. I want to stay busy.”

Wimberley View

P.O. Box 49
Wimberley, TX 78676
Phone: 512-847-2202
Fax: 512-847-9054