Chaplain Major Gary E. Penton, his daughter, Lawana and her husband Pastor Tony Gonzales, visited the Bonner Creek Baptist Church cemetery on August 30, the day after Penton's 91st birthday. Gary is a native of Bonner Creek.
The actual occasion for the visit was a planned visit with Penton's daughter, Lawana, to the building where she was born in Franklinton and the church building where he had been Pastor of what was then Second Baptist Church. She was born in a clinic operated by Doctors John and Hollis Stafford in March 1959. She got to visit the clinic building where she was born, then saw the church building where she first went to Sunday School and Church, cared for by Minnie Spears McGatha, a blind lady.
While Lawana's husband's car was in the shop, Gary's 1948 high school classmate, Franklin Carr, drove them around, showing the vast changes since Lawana' birth and finally out to the Bonner Creek Church and Cemetery. Most of Penton's family are buried in the Church Cemetery, including grandparents, parents, brother, uncle, aunts, cousins and greats.
Gary Penton was baptized at 12 years of age in a creek south of the Washington Parish line, was licensed to preach in 1952, and ordained in 1955, and was commissioned as an Air Force Chaplain in 1959. He completed 24 years in the Air Force, 16 as a Chaplain. He retired at England Air Force Base near Alexandria, LA, and after finishing another degree became a Prison Chaplain. He was the first Chaplain at what was then Washington Correctional Institute (now Rayburn) and served 10 of the institution’s first 12 years.
Chaplain Penton will always have a great love for the Bonner Creek Baptist Church. Their first church building was on a space inside of what is now an expanded cemetery. When the school that was called Falayah was closed, the church bought the school building, tore it down and used most of the lumber to build the church that now stands on the same spot. Their present Pastor was raised in Bogalusa, so he is not likely to leave the Bonner Creek Baptist Church.
(Editor’s note: Many thanks to Major Gary E. Penton for this interesting memoir.)
