Never heard of him? Who is he? What did he ever do? These are common questions of members of AEOE. Howard never wrote the "Great Book" on outdoor education, but he could have.
Howard M. Bell was born October 24, 1907. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Southern California in 1930 and in September joined the Los Angeles Unified School District as a physical education teacher. He became Supervisor of Youth Services at the Junior High level and in doing so inherited the administration of the Clear Creek Forestry Center, the oldest, continuously operated school camp in this country.
The Clear Creek Forestry Center was first opened in 1924. A disastrous fire that year led the L.A. Board of Education to lease 240 acres of forest land for use as a reforestation center. Mostly boys from the school district would hike into the area on weekends and spend time potting seeds and planting trees. When Howard received responsibility for this site, buildings had been added including a lodge, pool, kitchen, dining room, and caretaker's house. The lodge doubled as a sleeping area. Howard watched with great interest, the development of San Diego's pilot project in Outdoor Education in 1946 and with an even keener interest the development of the Long Beach Unified Schools program at Hi Hill in 1948. He tried to interest the L.A. Education people in Outdoor Education, but failing this, decided to do it himself.
In 1949, Howard was responsible for forming the L.A. County Committee on Outdoor Education. This committee acted as a professional outlet for people in the field and school districts interested in initiating outdoor education programs.
Recognizing that this committee was limited and had served its purpose by 1952, Howard became a driving force for the creation of the Association for Outdoor Education which became a reality in 1954. Howard served the Association in various roles until his death in 1961. The Howard Bell Award was created by action of the Board of Directors of AOE (now AEOE) in 1961, with Howard as the first recipient.
The purpose of the award is to give recognition for outstanding achievements and contributions in the area of outdoor education. Each member of the Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education has the opportunity to submit to the Board of Directors the name of someone whom they feel deserves consideration as a recipient of this award. When a member submits a name he may consider anyone who is in the field currently and may not necessarily be an AEOE member. Nominations are kept on file for three years and may be voted on by the Board as many as three times.
Nomination forms for the Howard Bell Award are posted in the AEOE winter newsletter each year, and are also available online - click here. Please make your information as complete as possible to assist the Board in making a fair decision. Nominations are due by March 1st of each year and are kept on file for three years for future consideration. The award is presented at the State wide Spring Conference in April.
Previous honorees include: Howard Bell, J. Holley Ashcraft, Elwood Mitchell,
L.B. Sharp, Jack Davidson, Don Hammerman, Ken Pike, Jane Westenberger,
Ed Pumula, Bill Hammerman, Ernie McDonald, John Kirk, Charlene
McDonald, Nanette
Sullivan, Elizabeth Sears, Richard Brians, Esther Railton, Michael
Johnson, Ronald Lang, Josephine Duveneck, Oscar Clark, Leonard
Beeman, Dean Orahood,
Fred Partridge, Shirley Mason, Marty Marcus, Pat Crocker, Lela
Crockett, Don Bielefield, Dan Baker, Rudy Schafer, Norris Beakes,
Ruth Crew, Ben Bird,
Jim Hastings, Elna Bakker, John Hendrickson, Greg Schuett, The
Banana Slug String Band, Bernie Lemm, Joseph Cornell, Bruce Daub,
George Stratman,
Carol Schloo Wright, Dan Allison, Stephen "Hoppy"
Hopkins, Jenny and
Marty Rigby, Rick
Mitchell, Pam Ivie, Kathe Hendrickson, and Zayanne Thompson.
More about the Howard Bell Award, including nomination information and form, and full list of previous honorees, click here.