Beth "Pinky" Penkala was an All State member of three Warren High School State Girls Track Championship teams, played in national softball competitions, and has served as a coach and official for twenty-five years.

A member of the Warren High State Girls Track Champions from 1973 to 1975, Beth was named All State in the discus in 1974 and both the discus and the shot put in 1975. 

During 1976 and 1977 she was the Most Valuable Player (and an All Star) while playing for the Bristol Women’s Softball League champions.  She captured the triple crown in 1976 and led the league in home runs and runs batted in during the following season.  In those same two years Pinky was a member of the title team in the Warren Women’s Softball League.

From 1977 to 1979 she was an All Star in the Tri-State Women’s Softball League, was named  to the 1978 All Rhode Island Women’s College Softball Tourney team, and was a member of the Newport Women’s Softball League champions in that same year.  In 1979 Pinky was the Most Valuable Player of the Rhode Island College women’s softball squad.

A member of both Rhode Island and New England women’s softball title teams in the mid-1980s, she participated in a number of National ASA and USSSA tourneys.  In 1987 she was named to the All Tournament team in the Fall River Women’s Softball League.  And in 1993 Pinky returned to the Warren Women’s Softball League with a bang, capturing the batting championship with an average of .725.

Upon graduation she served as Pilgrim High School’s junior varsity girls basketball coach and then served as the assistant coach of the Rhode Island College women’s softball team in 1980 and 1981.  In 1985 she was the first female to umpire an Ivy League women’s softball final playoff game.  From 1985 to 1989 Pinky served on the Rhode Island Interscholastic League’s subcommittee for girls athletics, during which time she was the first director of the girls fast-pitch softball league.

In 1987 she was the coach of Our Lady of Fatima High School’s girls fast-pitch softball team, while from 1987 to 1989 Beth was an assistant coach of the Roger Williams women’s softball squad.  In the last five years of Warren High’s existence (1989-1993) she was the assistant athletic director and the assistant coach of the girls softball team.  The softball team won the Class C title in 1991 and the Class B Two championship in 1993.

From 1993 to the present she has coached, at various times, Mt. Hope High School’s girls basketball, girls tennis, and boys tennis teams.

(In 2005 Beth was one of twelve Rhode Island College softball players to be named to the school's All 75th Anniversary Team.)

(Subsequent to her election to the Hall of Fame, Beth became the Athletic Director of Mt. Hope High School.)

Pictures from Hall of Fame archives