Debbye Turner Bell

Since 2001, Debbye Turner Bell has been enjoying her role in broadcast journalism as a staff correspondent for CBS News. She covers a variety of subjects, and is from time to time called upon to cover breaking and developing news. Turner Bell has been dubbed The Early Show's resident veterinarian, and shares a wealth of advice about quality pet care. In 2002, Debbye garnered an interview with President and Mrs. Bush at the White House for a Pet Planet segment about the first family's pets. Periodically she reports for the CBS Evening News. Turner Bell hosts a primetime television magazine program called 48 Hours on WE. Prior to joining CBS, she co-hosted a local television magazine program called Show Me St. Louis.

Turner Bell's first passion is motivational speaking. Since being crowned Miss America in 1990, Turner Bell has spoken to more than a half million students at hundreds of schools, youth organizations, and college campuses. She has addressed audiences in the corporate, academic, and political 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.

Although her job at CBS takes her across the country, Turner Bell has found time to serve on many local, state, and national boards over the years, 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 in May 1991 with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture in May 1986 from Arkansas State University.