Penrose Hallowell ( – July 24, 2021) was a Pennsylvania secretary of agriculture, leading the

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) is a cabinet-level agency in Pennsylvania. The department's purpose is to support a sustainable and safe supply of food and agricultural products; be good stewards of the land and natural resources; ...

between 1979 and 1985.

Personal life

Penrose Hallowell was born in

Bucks County, Pennsylvania Bucks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the Englis ...

, to Joseph W. Hallowell Sr. He graduated from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

in 1950, and the next year, began operating his own dairy farm in

Ottsville, Pennsylvania Ottsville is an unincorporated community in Tinicum Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States, with parts of the community located in neighboring Nockamixon Township. Ottsville is located at the intersection of Creamery Road/Geigel Hil ...

, which he named Pennywell Farm. Hallowell married Marion, with whom he had four children. From 1977, Hallowell has shared the management of Pennywell Farm with his son John.

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and later career

Hallowell was appointed by the incoming

Dick Thornburgh Richard Lewis Thornburgh (July 16, 1932 – December 31, 2020) was an American lawyer, author, and Republican politician who served as the 41st governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the United States attorney general fro ...

gubernatorial administration in January 1979 to head the

. During his tenure, Hallowell lent support to the passage of Act 43, which led to the 1988 establishment of the Pennsylvania Farmland Preservation Program. Following the

Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...

in March 1979, Hallowell's office launched an investigation, which found that there were no problems due to radiation in livestock near the site. Hallowell did report economic losses to local farms that he attributed to the accident. In 1980, Hallowell started the "We're growing better" campaign. In January 1985, a district magistrate ruled that Hallowell was guilty of shoplifting. An appeal was heard by judge William Vogel in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court, which reached the same verdict in April 1985. On April 3, 1985, Hallowell resigned his post at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Hallowell also vacated his seat on the Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees. Hallowell later became a real estate agent. Hallowell died July 24, 2021, at age 92.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hallowell, Penrose 1920s births 2021 deaths 20th-century American politicians Politicians from Bucks County, Pennsylvania Farmers from Pennsylvania Dairy farmers Pennsylvania State University alumni 21st-century American businesspeople American real estate brokers Businesspeople from Pennsylvania