Amy Doris Bell '99

She touched lives across the world. She loved horses, dogs, her family and friends, and she loved the Lord. She lived life with no handlebars, and she loved everyone to the ends of the earth. Her sudden death on May 16, 2014 left a void in the lives of her family and friends worldwide.

Amy was a Trinity “Lifer,” starting in the K3 group and ending upon graduation in 1999. She was a member of the Volleyball and Basketball team but her true love and passion was with horses. She furthered her studies at Tarleton State University where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Social and Human Services. After graduation, she accepted a job with the Department of Child Protective Services, where she fulfilled a lifelong dream of serving children.

In 2008, Amy made a career change and took her first love of riding horses to a new level. She became the manager of her family’s horse operation, Kalpowar Quarter Horses. Amy started her show career learning to ride English at the age of nine, on her horse, Hobby Five. She showed hunter jumpers throughout her youth career, earning two trips to the American Quarter Horse Association Youth World Finals. In 1999 after graduating from high school, she changed riding disciplines and began showing cutting horses and reined cow horses. Throughout her show career, Amy won numerous national and world show awards in all her riding disciplines. Amy was an adventurer. She had a true zest for life. She loved riding, hunting, sightseeing and traveling the world. Most importantly, she was a lover of her four-legged friends, her nieces and nephews, and her family and multitudes of friends.

Amy was the youngest of three children of Ellen and Larry Bell of Midland, TX. Amy was a life-member of Safari Club International, a Life Member of the American Quarter Horse Association, and she actively showed cutting horses and reined cow horses. At her passing, Amy was the manager of the Comanche Springs Ranch and Kalpowar Quarter Horses.

In Amy’s early twenties, she established the Amy Doris Bell Fund at the Permian Basin Area Foundation. The foundation’s primary focus was to support agencies that provided education and wellness for children worldwide. She helped fund numerous projects with Child Fund International, Salvation Army, Feed the Children, and she sponsored a beloved child in Zambia.

Amy loved to engage with children in laughter and games and extend her love for them in specific ways. On numerous trips to Africa, she left “love gifts” with friends to help support schools, clinics and an orphanage. One of her love gifts has led to the establishment of the Amy Bell Center for Children in Africa through an orphanage she supported in Cradock, South Africa. That Center will help children in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Uganda.

Compassion, love and a servant’s heart are the attributes that were the foundation of Amy’s life. With her untimely passing in 2014 at the tender age of 33, she left a profound legacy. Her “love gifts” have expanded internationally and her legacies of faith and compassion have spread like that of a wild fire. The legacy that Amy left not only to the community but also globally has grown immensely and she will live forever in our hearts and the many smiling faces of the children that she loved so dearly.