Sharon Bell

Ask Sharon Bell how long she’s been associated with The University of Tulsa, and she has a ready answer: “Basically all my life,” she says, and that includes her toddler days, when she would stack her father’s TU law books to reach forbidden things.

In fact, the 2012 Distinguished Alumna — a 1985 TU College of Law graduate and TU trustee — freely admits, “We bleed Blue and Gold at our house.”

Although many might assume that’s because Bell is trustee for one of the university’s most munificent donors, the Chapman Charitable Trusts, it’s also the result of a strong family history with TU. Bell’s father, the late William H. Bell (JD ’54), her husband, Greg Gray (BS’76, and JD ’85), and her son, John Gray (BS ’10) are just part of the 15 family members who call TU their alma mater “and we’re getting ready for the third and fourth generations” to attend, she says.

With her responsibilities as a trustee, Greg’s as chair of the TU Alumni Association’s Heritage Committee, and the myriad other campus events that require the couple’s presence representing the Chapman interests, Bell is on campus at least once a week. And that doesn’t count entertainments such as football, basketball, lectures and the like.

Of course, Bell might not be quite so involved if it weren’t for her work at Rogers & Bell law firm overseeing the 18 entities that comprise the James E. and Leta M. Chapman and related trusts, a duty that in a very real sense she inherited from her father, who administered the philanthropic giant for 11 years until his death in 1988.

Although her dad’s work (which also included being a TU trustee) made the university an important part of her life growing up, Bell came back to campus the long way around. A native Tulsan, she wanted to go elsewhere to experience college life and attended Connecticut College and the University of Pennsylvania to obtain degrees in urban studies and city planning. She found work first for a small environmental company and then in planning in Oklahoma City. Unfortunately, both jobs resulted in her being laid off.

“I decided I needed another career path, something more stable, and that’s when I came to law school, ” she says.

During her second year at TU, she was working as a teaching assistant. At a Friday night law school mixer in September, she staked herself out near the beer keg to greet the first-year students she might be helping. She introduced herself to Greg, who told her, no, he was a second year student, too. The two had never met because he was taking night classes, while she was in the day division. They talked a long time. They had overlapping interests: he’d been in real estate, she in planning; they both loved historic preservation. Was it love at first sight?

“More or less,” she says. “Years later when we cochaired the Law School Capital Campaign, we found the rotunda was approximately where the beer keg was.”

The couple even ties the ubiquitous “meet the parents” story to TU. When her father and fellow TU luminary Arnold Brown (BS ’50) were named Distinguished Alumni in 1983, Sharon introduced Greg as her date. Her parents didn’t even know they had been seeing each other.

When she graduated, law jobs were scarce, but her father had a slot for her at his firm. Although she had some trepidation about working for him, she says it was a special time, particularly when he became ill with cancer.

“He was trying to cram all the Chapman stuff into me as fast as he could, and he did.”

One of the issues she deals with for all Chapman beneficiaries is how to best use the trusts’ funds.

“We can do capital, we can do endowment and we can do operations. How do we use this money to build strength and build depth?” she asks.

Along with meeting named and unnamed unglamorous needs like asbestos removal, Chapman built TU’s faculty endowment and its Presidential Scholarship program — two drivers of the budget.

“It’s been wonderful, very gratifying to be involved with something much bigger than I am, and to help make a difference, ” she says.

The university has a special place in her heart, she says. “It’s just been a blessing in my life to be part of TU.”