Glenn Cunningham (1909–1988)

Despite suffering grievous injuries to his legs as a child, Glenn Cunningham became one of the world’s legendary middle-distance runners. He participated in the Olympic games in Los Angeles in 1932 and Berlin in 1936, winning silver in the latter. He would hold the world record for the mile run for three years and claimed later to have beaten that time—and also the four-minute mile—in events that did not qualify as world records. His dogged spirit and determination, recounted in his 1981 book Never Quit, enhanced his reputation and made him an icon for young athletes for generations. After his athletic career ended, Cunningham went to college, obtained a doctorate, taught, and developed the other passion of his life, helping thousands of abandoned and troubled children at a youth ranch that he founded and ran, first in his native Kansas and finally near the town of Menifee (Conway County) in central Arkansas.

Glenn Vernice Cunningham was born on August 4, 1909, at Atlanta, Kansas, southeast of Wichita, one of seven children of Henry Clinton Cunningham and Rosa Agnes Moore Cunningham. Cunningham would later write that while his parents were educated and insisted on a good education for all the children, they and the rest of the family were opposed to sports of any kind. “My family always thought I was foolish,” he wrote.

When he was a toddler, the family moved from Atlanta to nearby Elkhart. When he and his siblings arrived for school one frosty morning, eight-year-old Glenn and his thirteen-year-old brother Floyd were getting the heat going for the schoolrooms. They apparently were unaware that there had been a fire in the stove the previous evening and that there were still live embers. When Floyd began pouring gasoline instead of slower-reacting kerosene on the wood, it exploded in flames, scorching their skins and setting their clothes on fire. Their brother and sister ran with the two boys—who had much of their skin inflamed and their clothes burned off—down the road to their home. Glenn fell to the ground, but his siblings forced him up and dragged him home.

Floyd died of his injuries. Glenn was so critically wounded that doctors recommended removing his legs to save his life, but he begged to keep them. However, he could not stand for two years, and lost the toes on his left foot, which made running often painful for the rest of his life. But he insisted on becoming an athlete and trained religiously. He crawled along a fence at the family home for hours a day to build up his legs. He went out for track in high school, began to win distance races, and attended and graduated from the University of Kansas, where he became a national track star.

At the Los Angeles and Berlin Olympic games, the background story of his severely damaged legs and of his popularity on the Olympic teams turned him into a legend. He is considered by many to be the greatest American mile runner of all time. His best official time was 4:04.4, recorded in 1938, although he claimed to have timed himself once in less than four minutes. He usually hung back the first half mile and then turned on the jets for the last two trips around the track. He received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States in 1933. In the Olympics, he finished fourth in the 1,500-meter run in 1932 and second in the same event in 1936. He set the world record for the mile run at 4:06.8 in 1934, which stood for three years. He won the Wanamaker Mile at New York’s annual Millrose Games six times.

Cunningham married Margaret Speir of Peabody, Kansas, in 1934, and they had two children. He married Ruth Maxine Sheffield in 1947, and they had ten children.

After leaving sports in 1940, Cunningham received a master’s degree from the University of Iowa and a doctorate from New York University. He was director of physical education at Cornell College in Iowa for four years. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Together, he and his wife opened a wild-animal farm and the Glenn Cunningham Youth Ranch for Troubled Children near El Dorado, Kansas, east of Wichita, in 1947.

During a speaking engagement in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the 1960s, a man approached Cunningham about visiting Hidden Valley Ranch on state Highway 7 south of Ola (Yell County) and Plainview (Yell County), which had been started by the circulation manager of the Arkansas Democrat but was by then vacant. Cunningham bought the ranch and turned it into a habitation for troubled and abandoned children and a home for exotic animals such as llamas and a polar bear.

He and his wife would take credit for caring for more than 8,000 children over the years at remote ranches for troubled children in the Petit Jean Mountains west of Conway (Faulkner County) or in Kansas. One ranch, Glenhaven Youth Ranch, named after Cunningham, was opened in June 1985. Jody Brown bought it from Cunningham, who had inspired Brown to buy two compounds called Shiloh and Hidden Valley in heavily wooded areas of Ouachita National Forest. Brown had come to a youth camp run by Cunningham and was inspired to devote his own life to the same endeavor. The camps were supported by church groups.

Cunningham died of a heart attack in his truck on March 10, 1988, after feeding wild animals at his ranch near Menifee. His ashes were scattered under a tree, and a cenotaph marking his death is in Crestlawn Memorial Park in Conway.

For additional information:
Cunningham, Glenn. Never Quit. Lincoln, VA: Chosen Books, 1981.

Dean, Jerry. “Exotic Llamas Gain Foothold in Faulkner County.” Arkansas Gazette, July 3, 1985, pp. 1B, 2B.

Glenn Cunningham Collection. Kansas Historical Society. https://www.kansashistory.gov/index.php?url=archives/309360 (accessed February 13, 2026).

“Glenn Cunningham, Noted Runner, Dies.” Arkansas Gazette, March 11, 1988, pp. 1A, 14A.

Nowlin, Gary. “The Boy Who Wasn’t Supposed to Walk.” Arkansas Gazette, April 1, 1990, p. 3C.

“Program ‘Pulled Him out of the Ditch,’ Resident Says.” Arkansas Gazette, Nov. 20, 1988, p. 2J.

Rogers, Thomas. “Glenn Cunningham, 78, Premier of 1930’s.” New York Times, March 11, 1988, p. D18.

Ernest Dumas
Little Rock, Arkansas