Debbye

Turner Bell

Dr. Debbye Turner Bell is a veterinarian, journalist, corporate trainer, minister, motivational speaker, wife, and mother. For more than two decades, she has addressed audiences in the corporate, academic, and community service arenas. Among the topics she has addressed are “Being A Woman in A Man’s World,” “Effective Communication,” “Power of Influence,” and “Enhancing Diversity in Health Professions.” 

In addition to her speaking and media work, Dr. Turner Bell is the Founder and CEO of Debbye Turner Bell Consulting, through which she provides leadership development training in communications, influence, and diversity to corporate and business leaders, managers, and executives.

Turner Bell is also a faculty member of the Institute for Management Studies, and an Affiliate Trainer for the TransPorter Group Inc. She has trained corporate managers and leaders across the U.S., and in Great Britain, Scotland, and Belgium. 

​Turner Bell served as the lead U.S. news anchor for Arise News, a global cable news network from 2013 to 2016. She hosted a daily evening news broadcast called “Arise America”. Currently, she can be seen as an expert contributor to the show DOGS 101 on Animal Planet. 

For 11 years, Turner Bell enjoyed her role in broadcast journalism as a staff correspondent for CBS News starting in 2001. She covered a variety of subjects, and was from time to time called upon to cover breaking and developing news. Turner Bell was dubbed The Early Show's resident veterinarian sharing a wealth of advice about quality pet care. In 2002, Debbye garnered an interview with President & Mrs. Bush at the White House for a Pet Planet segment about the first family’s pets. Periodically she reported for the CBS Evening News. And she provided an in-depth look at the working dogs of the federal agency, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for CBS Sunday Morning.  Turner Bell hosted a prime time television magazine program called "48 Hours on WE."  Prior to joining CBS, she co-hosted a local television magazine program called "ShowMe St. Louis."

Turner Bell has been a guest lecturer and Commencement speaker on numerous college campuses, including University of Notre Dame, Cornell University, Texas A & M University and Auburn University. Turner Bell’s enduring passion is motivational speaking. Since being crowned Miss America in 1990, Turner Bell has spoken to millions of students at countless schools, youth organizations and college campuses. She has addressed audiences in the corporate, academic, and community service arenas. Her topics include personal excellence, determination, goal setting and the importance of a solid education. Turner Bell’s beliefs reflect her own life-lessons – it took seven years and eleven tries in two states before she was crowned Miss America.

​Dr. Turner Bell divides her time doing leadership development, motivational and Christian speaking, and television broadcasting.  Although she is not currently in clinical practice in veterinary medicine, she has promoted responsible pet ownership and proper veterinary care for pets through public service announcements, news features, and workshops. Dr. Turner Bell has carried her message of pet care and motivation as far away as Rome, Italy, and Johannesburg, South Africa. 

​Over the course of her career, Turner Bell has found time to serve on many local, state and national boards, including the National Council on Youth leadership, Children's Miracle Network, Missouri Division of Youth Services and Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club, and the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council, which is an advisory council to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which is an institute in the National Institutes of Health.

​Turner Bell graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture from Arkansas State University. Turner Bell lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with her husband and daughter.