Keynote speaker Elizabeth McIngvale addresses the crowd that filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Luncheon chairs Shelley Tortorice and Regina Rigers pose for a photo during the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Chairs Regina Rogers and Shelley Tortorice address the crowd that filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Joy and Will Crenshaw accept their honorary chairs award before the crowd that filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Bishop David Toups circulates through the crowd filling the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
The crowd that filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon react as luncheon speeches continue. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Kim Phelan presents Dr. Coffy Pieternelle with his honoree award during the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
A crowd filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
MHA of Southeast Texas President Vernice Monroe presents honoree Jean Moncla with her award during the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Rep. Dade Phelan and reVision Executive Director Joe Evans speak during the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
A crowd filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
A crowd filled the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
DR. Gwendolyn Lavalais talks with guests during the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Rev. Fuller addresses the crowd filling the banquet room at the Holiday Inn Plaza for the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Rev. Jim Fuller presents Dr. Edward Gripon with the Doris & Dr. Harry Starr Award for Excellence during the annual Mental Health Matters Luncheon. Photo made Thursday, April 9, 2026 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise staff
Kim Brent
Southeast Texas is putting mental health top of mind, with the Beaumont City Council recently approving a community partnership with Care Solace to improve accessibility to Baptist Hospital’s expanded Behavioral Center treatment.
It is a topic that took center stage last week during the Mental Health America of Southeast Texas’ annual Mental Health Awareness Luncheon, which drew hundreds to the Holiday Inn Beaumont Plaza ballroom.
Article continues below this ad
As community awareness of the need for services grows, Rev. Jim Fuller opened the event with an invocation that focused on shared experience between those living with mental health challenges and the community at large.
“If you’ve experienced vulnerability lately, you’ve become connected to the small, the weak and the lost,” Fuller said. “We are all vulnerable, and occasionally we understand what it means to feel little, last and lost…Let us find the strength in each of our stories.”
The message strikes at the core of MHA of Southeast Texas’ mission to “promote the wellness of our region and enhance the lives of all individuals impacted by mental illness through community collaboration, education and advocacy.”
RELATED: Solace Care expands SETX mental health assistance
Article continues below this ad
While the nonprofit’s local legacy dates back to its earliest version in 1942, the mission celebrated at the luncheon goes back even further.
The national Mental Health America organization was founded in 1909 by Clifford W. Beers, whose personal patient journey through the early 20th century mental health system was marked by abuse, stigmatization and a misunderstanding of treatment for mental illness.
Fast forward 127 years, and while progress has been made, there are still significant milestones to be reached, particularly in Southeast Texas.
It’s something Dr. Coffy Pieternelle realized during his 35 years in practice as an obstetrician and gynecologist, delivering thousands of babies and treating many more women along the way.
Article continues below this ad
Increasingly, his care included treatment for associated mental health conditions — a mission born more of necessity than choice.
“That wasn’t easy, because there is a dire shortage (of adequate mental health care) in Beaumont,” Pieternelle noted. “Hopefully, this can help.”
He was among the honorees recognized during the annual luncheon, which drew a broadly representative crowd of local officials, law enforcement, clergy, social service agencies, medical professionals, educators, students and the general public.
The breadth of the crowd reflected a core message of MHA of Southeast Texas — mental illness and health affects all of us.
Article continues below this ad
RELATED: Baptist Hospital fee abatement issue tabled
It’s the grassroots mentality to make a difference that inspired Joy and Will Crenshaw to throw their hand in the community mental health ring last year.
Their “Revisioning Future Success Initiative” was born at last year’s MHA luncheon, where “turning awareness into action” was the theme.
The philanthropic couple embraced the challenge, working with organizations like reVision and IEA to address mental health concerns where they often start — in childhood.
Article continues below this ad
Based on a pilot study of 5th through 7th graders at Charleton-Pollard Elementary School that identified a need for early intervention, the Crenshaws heeded the call to put that awareness into action.
“Right here in this room last year (that initiative) was birthed,” Joy said.
Their program impacted 126 area children, Will noted, and created “a unique chance to meet and help those kids get some needed attention…It’s well needed and it’s going to help.”
As the 2026 luncheon honorary chairs, the Crenshaws were joined in onstage honors by Dr. Pieternelle and others, including Jean Moncla and psychiatrist DR. Edward Gripon — recipient of the Doris and Dr. Harry Starr Award for Excellence.
Article continues below this ad
His 58-year medical career — 54 of which were spent in psychiatry treating over 40,000 patients — laid the basis for his expertise on mental health in the Golden Triangle.
RELATED: Police mentors making a difference in youth lives
His work, as well as that of fellow honorees and others, ushered in the next phase of MHA’s Southeast Texas story — one best summed up in the luncheon’s 2026 theme — “In every story, there is strength.”
No one exemplified that theme better than keynote speaker Elizabeth McIngvale. Much like MHA founder Beer’s personal story, hers is born in a personal mental health journey that started in childhood.
Article continues below this ad
At the age of 12, McIngvale began experiencing the obsessions and repetitive behaviors that years later would balloon into a full-blown Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) diagnosis.
Having grown up in a family that was no stranger to the public spotlight and financial means — her father being renowned Houston businessman “Mattress Mack” — McIngvale sought anything but the attention her crippling OCD condition created.
It was a condition that, like many mental illnesses, simply wasn’t addressed — not out of a lack of care, but a lack of understanding.
“When nobody talks about mental health, nobody knows what to do,” McIngvale said. “We mostly turn our head when we see someone in crisis…And when you don’t have a message of hope, you’re terrified.”
Article continues below this ad
RELATED: Beaumont celebrates opening of new therapy center
The promise of a life without OCD, one that contained hope for health and healing, wasn’t something McIngvale experienced early in her diagnosis.
Had the family listened to doctors treating her at the age of 15, the Elizabeth McIngvale standing at the podium last week delivering a professional and deeply personal message of hope, never would have existed.
But her mother championed the cause, McIngvale noted, taking a chance on the work at the Kansas City-based psychiatric Meninger Clinic, which was treating OCD and other mental illnesses.
Article continues below this ad
There, McIngvale found not only a lifeline in treatment, but most importantly understanding that she was not alone.
“I realized that I had a community,” she said. “I wasn’t alone, and there were other people like me.”
McIngvale’s path to not only living with OCD but thriving despite it, wasn’t a straight path.
RELATED: Beaumont embraces the power of prayer in community struggles
Article continues below this ad
It included set-backs, additional treatment and the difficult but courageous decision to own her condition. At 17, she became the “face of OCD,” and turned the tables on those who might otherwise turn their head away from the mental health struggles within their community.
“I realized you have to have your community, and those communities saved my life,” McIngvale said. “Now, I get to help save my community.”
She’s not only a survivor of a mental illness, nor the only champion for raising awareness. But as a psychologist, director of the OCD Institute of Texas and multiple other positions within the treatment and teaching field, McIngvale epitomizes what it means to find strength in her story.
Article continues below this ad
“There is a purpose to my pain,” McIngvale said. “And we can turn (that pain) into service and purpose.”
