Anyone wishing to submit to website, contact:   Bob Zeitler,  Midway Marine

When on Lake Secession, Casey stops in and visits with Billy.

James Roy Pennell’s road to success was literally of his own making. He built many of the roads and bridges he traveled on and even manufactured many of the materials from which those roads were constructed. This modern-day pioneer in the road construction industry came to be known as “father of the South Carolina highway department.”

  

 

  Roy Pennell was born near Belton, South Carolina, on March 23, 1888, the second son of James Robert and Nannie Browne Pennell. His ancestors had come from Ireland in 1827. For several generations, his family had tilled the land in the southern part of Anderson County. His father, a cotton farmer, probably fared no worse than most of his neighbors in the post-Civil War era. Pennell’s earliest schooling was in a one-room country school, but his parents, especially his mother, placed high value on education, and all nine of the Pennell children attended college and achieved distinction in their chosen fields.