- Name
- Cecil Bell
- Position
- Forward
- Class
- Senior
- Hometown (Last School)
- Paris, KY (Millersburg Military Institute)
- Seasons
- 1930-31, 1931-32
- Birthday
- May 10, 1910
Obituary – Bell, Lexington Herald-Leader (December 1, 2004)
Bell, Cecil D., son of Mary Varner and John H. Bell was born May 25, 1910 in Bourbon County.
He graduated from Millersburg Military Institute in 1928. While a student at MMI he was Captain of his ROTC Company and Captain of the basketball team, which won the state tournament. He graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.S. degree in Agriculture.
While a student at U.K., he was a two-year letterman in basketball having played for Adolph Rupp’s first teams. He operated the scoreboard at the press table for the University’s basketball games for 33 years.
While a student at the University he was President of the Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity; Captain of his ROTC Company, Vice President of the Pan Hellenic Council and a member of Scabbard and Blade Honorary Military Fraternity.
He served as a deacon at Central Christian Church for 40 years and was a representative from the church on the Garth Educational Fund of the Lexington Theological Seminary.
He was a member of Fayette County Farm Bureau of which he served as President in 1945 and 1946 and served as a Director of the Bureau for 15 years. He was honored by the Gamma Sigma Delta Honorary Agriculture Fraternity as an outstanding citizen of Agriculture. He was a former member on the Board of the University of Kentucky Alumni Association for two terms, a member of Spindletop Hall of which he served as Director for four different terms; and now Director emeritus of the University Century Fund.
He was honored by the Georgetown Farm City Committee as a Pioneer Farmer. He is a director emeritus of the Burley-Tobacco Auction Warehouse. In 1944 he won the WHAS Home and Farm Improvement Campaign for Kentucky and Southern Indiana sponsored by the Courier Journal and Louisville Times.
In 1943 his farm was chosen by the University Experiment Station as one of 10 sample farms in Kentucky and as their tobacco enterprise demonstration farms by using the best method. He was a farmer and breeder of pure-bred registered Angus cattle. He was a member of the Lexington Optimist Club and the University of Kentucky K-Men’s Association.
Survivors are his wife Clara Elizabeth Innes Bell and two children, Cecil D. Bell, Jr. of Georgetown and Julianne Bell Bloomfield of Lexington; a daughter-in-law Kay Shropshire-Bell; four grandchildren, Ann Bell Stone (Mae), John Cecil Bell (Melissa), Jamie Bloomfield and Josh Bloomfield (Ellen) and two great grandchildren, Riette and Isabell Bloomfield. He was preceded in death by a brother Reynolds Bell of Paris. His brother John R. Bell, Jr. of Lynden, Washington; niece Mary Sue Gillam (Dick) of Georgetown and nephew John Reynolds Bell (Pat) of Paris.
Services will be private. Visitation will be 5-7 p.m. Wed., at W.R. Milward Mortuary Broadway. Contributions may be made to Central Christian Church Memorial Fund or Hospice of the Bluegrass.
