Raylene Hinz-Penner, born in 1949, grew up on a dairy farm in Liberal, Kansas. The family farm was located in the very southwest corner of the state near the Oklahoma panhandle, so she always considered herself and her people as "Oklahomans" (Hinz-Penner). Raylene attended a one-room country school called Brown's Corner for her first seven years of education and developed teaching skills at a young age by assisting younger students in the school (A Cappella 73). Her father, "a gentleman dairy farmer,'' introduced her to poetry, and Raylene has fond memories of waking to recitations of poems such as "Good Morning, Merry Sunshine'' (Hinz-Penner).

As a child, Raylene's one and only family vacation to New Mexico proved to be formative in her later years. A self proclaimed "plains person,'' Raylene makes annual pilgrimages to Santa Fe, New Mexico and has taken a special interest in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum located in the city (A Cappella 73) . O'Keeffe's artwork, personal life, and particular attention to geography attracted Raylene and have inspired several poems (Hinz-Penner).

While she has worked as a teacher, poet and editor, Raylene considers teaching to be her first and primary profession. She graduated from Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas and has worked for the institution in various positions, both as a teacher of writing and American Literature and as associate for institutional advancement. She was awarded the Ralph P. Schrag Distinguished Teaching Award in 1988 (A Cappella 73). Raylene earned an M.F.A. from Wichita State University in 1995 and currently teaches at Washburn University in Topeka, KS. She has also spent time teaching poetry to male inmates of maximum security correctional facilities in Lansing and Hutchinson, KS (A Cappella 73).

In addition to teaching and writing poetry of her own, Raylene helps bring other young Mennonite writers into print through her work as the arts editor for Mennonite Life , a quarterly publication devoted to exploring Mennonite experience. Raylene's poems have appeared in publications such as Kansas Quarterly, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Conrad Grebel Review, Sophia, and Mennonot (A Cappella 73).

Currently, Raylene is completing a biography of Lawrence Hart, Cheyenne peace chief of Clinton, Oklahoma. She first interviewed Hart in the fall of 2002, and spent the last three years exploring his journey, his faith, and geography as well her own through the interview and research process. The book was accepted in the C. Henry Smith series edited by J. Denny Weaver from Bluffton University and was published by Cascadia Press in 2007.


Hostetler, Ann, ed. A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. Iowa City, Iowa: 
          University of Iowa Press, 2003.

Hinz-Penner, Raylene. Eimail Interview. 15 Nov. 2005.