Friday,
March 18, 2005
PRESBYTERIAN
COLLEGE & BASEBALL ALUMNI TO HONOR THE LATE CURTIS
BELL WITH
SCHOLARSHIP
ESTABLISHMENT ON SATURDAY CLINTON, SC — Family
and friends remember the late Curtis Bell a 2004
graduate of Presbyterian College, as a talented athlete,
an outstanding scholar, and a young man who lived a
model life of citizenship. |
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| This Saturday between games of a doubleheader against Wingate University, Bell’s former classmates and teammates on the Presbyterian College baseball team will announce a scholarship that will offer opportunities to other young men who share Bell’s traits. | |
The
Curtis Bell Scholarship, will be established at Presbyterian
College by 2003 PC alumni Richard Barkley and Heath
McCutcheon, and 2004 alumni Philip Hauserman, Travis Hill,
Todd Warren, and Kevin White, in Bell’s memory and for the
support of one student-athlete from the Blue Hose baseball
program who exhibits Bell’s characteristics and qualities.
The
scholarship will be awarded to a freshman baseball player from
South Carolina or Georgia who will hold the award throughout
his career at PC. Only one scholar-athlete will hold the
scholarship at any given time.
Bell, a native of Gilbert, S.C., was the starting third
baseman for the Blue Hose during the 2004 season. He died last
October when the T-6 Texan airplane he was piloting crashed in
Lexington County. He was 22 years old.
“Curtis was not only an outstanding baseball
player and a scholar, but he was what everyone of us strives
to be — the ultimate citizen,” PC head baseball coach
Elton Pollack said. “Curtis will be missed, but never
forgotten. The legacy he left behind will live on in our
hearts forever.”
A physics major who minored in both business and math, Bell
was the epitome of the PC scholar-athlete. As the starting third baseman for the 2004 Blue Hose baseball
team, Bell hit .362 with four home runs and 44 RBI to earn
first team All-South Atlantic Conference honors.
He also was named first team Academic All-America and
SAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award for baseball after
posting a 3.94 grade point average in the classroom.
He was named to the SAC Commissioner’s Honor Roll during
all eight semesters he attended PC.
A licensed pilot, Bell was a third-generation
aviator. One of his earliest memories, he recalled, was
standing at the controls in a plane’s cockpit while being
held by his grandfather, an
aircraft mechanic and pilot from Carrolton, Ga.
The seed that was planted in that 5-year-old boy found
strong roots and he dedicated himself to learning more about
flying and airplanes.
He had flown since the age of 13 and logged more than 2,000
hours as a pilot. Bell soloed in a glider at age 14 and held
the North Carolina record for altitude in a glider. He and his
father, Don Bell, owner of Bell Aviation in Columbia, S.C.,
crossed the Atlantic together. Curtis also soloed to numerous
cities in the United States, and flew the family’s vintage
airplanes in shows and exhibitions across the U.S.
He was both instrument and multi-engine rated, and earned
his instructor rating in 2001 to spend his summers teaching
others to fly. His talents were profiled in 2002 in the
Presbyterian College Magazine and last
June on Fox Sports’ national “NCAA on Campus”
television show.