Debbye Turner Bell (born September 19, 1965 in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

) is an American

TV anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

veterinarian A veterinarian (vet), also known as a veterinary surgeon or veterinary physician, is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, vet ...

talk show host Below is a list of talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television T ...

, former beauty queen and winner of the 1990 Miss America pageant.

Early life and education

Turner was born in

and raised in

Jonesboro, Arkansas Jonesboro is a city located on Crowley's Ridge in the northeastern corner of the U.S. State of Arkansas. Jonesboro is one of two county seats of Craighead County. According to the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 78,576 and is the f ...

. Turner earned a Bachelor of Science in agriculture from

Arkansas State University Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osa ...

, and attended the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Turner also spent a couple of years honing her public service skills working for Safeway Stores. In 1991, she received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine. She became a spokesperson for Purina and pursued a career in veterinary medicine before going into television.

Pageantry

Turner was the first runner-up at the Miss Arkansas Pageant, a state preliminary competition for the Miss America program in 1988. In the summer of 1989, she won the

Miss Missouri Miss (pronounced ) is an English language honorific typically used for a girl, for an unmarried woman (when not using another title such as " Doctor" or "Dame"), or for a married woman retaining her maiden name. Originating in the 17th century, i ...

title and went on to win the 1990 Miss America crown. Turner is a singer, pianist, and skilled percussionist, evidenced by her marimba rendition of '" Flight of the Bumblebee"' in the talent portion of the 1990 Miss America contest. Turner was the third

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

national titleholder and the first—and as of 2019, the only—Miss Missouri to be crowned Miss America.

Career

Turner's first hosting job came at the

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate

KSDK KSDK (channel 5) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Market Street in Downtown St. Louis, and its transmitter is located in Shrewsbury, ...

, on a show called ''Show Me St. Louis'' in 1995. Six years later, Turner joined

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

as a feature correspondent then became their "resident veterinarian" and a fill-in anchor. Turner was also a fill-in anchor on the ''

CBS Morning News The ''CBS Morning News'' is an American early-morning news broadcast presented weekdays on the CBS television network. The program features late-breaking news stories, national weather forecasts and sports highlights. Since 2013, it has been anc ...

''. Turner left CBS in 2012. She has appeared on

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1, 1996, the network is primarily dev ...

's ''

Cats 101 ''Cats 101'' is a television series about cats that airs on Animal Planet and reruns on Discovery Family. Plot ''Cats 101'' features different cat breeds per episode, discussed by experts, ranging from veterinarians to animal trainers. The sho ...

'' and ''

Dogs 101 Current programming Former programming References {{DEFAULTSORT:Animal Planet original programming Animal Planet original programming American television-related lists ...

'' series. She is currently the host of ''Arise America'', on

Arise News Arise News is a London-based world news channel. It has studios in New York City, London, Johannesburg, Abuja and Lagos. The channel features African, US and European content. It is operated by Arise Broadcasting Ltd., which is owned by Nigerian ...

Personal life

Turner is the daughter of Frederick C. Turner, Jr. and Gussie Turner. Turner married Gerald Bell in 2008. The couple have a daughter, Lynlee Julia Bell, born February 3, 2010. Turner's older sister, Suzette, is married to

megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...

pastor,

Kirbyjon Caldwell Kirbyjon H. Caldwell is the former senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, a 14,000-member megachurch at Windsor Village, Houston, Windsor Village in Houston, Texas. He was a spiritual advisor to Presidents George W. Bush and Ba ...

References

External links

Turner's official websiteDebbye's Arise News TwitterTurner biography
at ''The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Debbye 1965 births Living people People from Honolulu American television news anchors Miss America 1990 delegates Miss America winners Arkansas State University alumni People from St. Louis People from Missouri People from Jonesboro, Arkansas University of Missouri alumni American veterinarians Miss America Preliminary Swimsuit winners Women veterinarians American women television journalists African-American beauty pageant winners 20th-century American people 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 21st-century American women