Just spend five minutes with Betty Bell and you know she’s an actress. You could almost swear she was cradled in a traveling trunk. But Betty did not come from a theatrical family—her father was the sheriff of Newton County.

Born in Granby, Betty graduated from high school there in 1949.

“I was not theatrical as a child,” Betty said. “I was in a junior class play in high school and did enter one speech contest when I was a senior in high school.”

That was the limit of Betty’s stage appearance except for being part of Granby’s Easter Sunrise Service.

“The whole school participated in those as well as the townspeople,” she said. “We practiced for weeks for this. On Easter morning we got up before daylight and went to the Community Building where the grade school children formed a living cross — all dressed in white robes.”

After high school, Betty started college in Springfield. She eventually had two majors — elementary education and home economics. In her career, she taught in several rural schools, finally completing her teaching career at Carthage where she taught from 1964 until she retired in 1985. In total, she taught 20 years in elementary school and 10 years in home economics.

In 1973, when her own children were in junior high and high school, Betty read about auditions for the musical “Mame” which was being produced by the Carthage Music Club and the Rotary Club.

“I auditioned, got a part, and the ‘bug’ bit me. I haven’t stopped acting since,” Betty laughed.
Indeed she has not stopped. Since that first show, Betty has done more than 80 productions. A fan of musicals, she has appeared in “Mame,” “Gypsy,” “Carousel,” “Oliver,” “Camelot,” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

In dramatic or comedy shows, she has had roles in “Arsenic and old Lace,” “Bus Stop,” “Inherit the Wind,” “On Golden Pond,” “Harvey,” and many, many others.

Her favorite shows are “The Glass Menagerie,” and “Driving Miss Daisy.”

Betty has played Amanda twice in “The Glass Menagerie,” and each time she won the annual award for Best Actress in this role. In her other favorite show, Betty played Miss Daisy, opposite Paxton Williams, executive director of the George Washington Carver Birthplace Association.
In both of these shows, the roles called for a southern accent.

“I enjoyed the role of Amanda because she was a lady from the south. It wasn’t too difficult getting the southern accent, although a bit of my Granby accent came through,” Betty explained.
“My other favorite role was Daisy in ‘Driving Miss Daisy.” I think the southern role also made this enjoyable.”

When not playing a role, Betty does much backstage work with costumes, scenery, publicity and even preparing food for the dinner theaters. What motivates Betty Bell to go on stage, or take a backstage job?

 “I do it because you can be another person. When I am doing a role, I live that role and feel I am really that person. I did a show just before I had complete hip replacement. While on stage, I had no pain, but when I got off stage they had to have a chair for me. I think part of this goes back to my love of reading. When I was teaching, I encouraged my students to read and live the part they were reading and they would thoroughly enjoy it.”

Reflecting back on her life, Betty has great memories of some of the “roles” she played.

“My father, John Tuggle, was always involved in politics and, as a little girl, I remember handing out cards for politicians and the long nights waiting on the Neosho Courthouse lawn for the election returns,” Betty said.

Asked what her children and her husband think of her life in the theater, she laughs and says, “I think they just sort of put up with me.”