Staff Report
When women were first allowed to serve on U.S. attack submarines in 2013, Buda resident Gracie Hough was still in high school. But Hough, who graduated from Hays High School three years later, will be an active submariner soon enough.
Hough went through the motions of graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy Anapolis May 11, said her grandfather Jim Hough with more than a touch of pride. Even now, he said, “There are not many female submariners, but she was selected.”
While at the academy, she was a member of the Drum & Bugle Corp and, during her junior and senior year, served as drum major. She finished her last senior semester as the Drum & Bugle Corp Company Commander.
The daughter of Russell and Terry Hough, she had also been drum major for the band during her high school career.
Always a trailblazer, she leaves the Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science and a commission as a U.S. Navy Ensign. Next up, she will be attending the Naval Nuclear Power School in Goose Creek, South Carolina and then the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut.
She’s following a family tradition and maybe, starting one of her own, according to her grandfather, who served in the Navy from 1957 to 1961 before a stint in the U.S. Coast Guard. A grandson of Jim Hough also served in the Navy but is out now; Gracie’s father serves in the Army and is expecting a transfer to Fort Hood in Killeen before deployment to Kuwait.
The fact that Gracie is to be married to a submariner might also figure into her thinking, her grandfather says. “We’re just real proud of her,” he said. “Whatever she does, she does well.” That includes her hobbies of playing trumpet, hiking and camping.
