LAWRENCE D. BELL

Left: A assembly line in the Bell plant shows frames ready for assembly o f their power plants. Below: Bell Aircraft Museum president Gerald Romine, left, and Niagara Aerospace Museum vice president Pal Faltyn, right, guide a restored -H1 helicopter onto a trailer that took it to Niagara Falls. Larry Blyth, the driver, watches in the back­ ground. Members of the Bell Aircraft Museum Association restored the 1,800-pound craft for the New York group.

Bell gasped when he saw it. “It’s m y whole Back in Buffalo, life.” on July 9,1955, Bell Though he enjoyed slipping into the assembled some of room for a few moments o f recollection the men and women and relaxation, Bell continued to focus his who had helped him thoughts on the company that, in 1954, start his company in had 18,850 employees and $185.6 mil­ 1935. O f the fifty-six lion in sales. W ork continued on the first original employees, jet-powered vertical takeoff and landing twenty-one were still airplane and a convertiplane but, by 1955, with the company. Bell noted in his annual report message Ray Whitman, mas­ that more than 75 percent o f the com­ ter o f ceremonies, pany’s scientific and technical effort was and Roger Lewis, assistant secretary o f the 1956, Bell resigned as president o f Bell concerned with guided missiles and related U.S. Air Force, presented the Exceptional Aircraft Corporation, but was elected work. Service Award, the highest honor the air chairman o f the board. Within a month, That same year, the Bell Foundation, force can bestow on a civilian, to Bell, he suffered a heart attack and died ten a charitable trust run by Bell Aircraft hailing him as “one o f that small band o f days later on October 20, 1956, the dean executives that Bell had founded following American pioneers who have conspicu­ o f American aviation. His career had World War II, sponsored a new library for ously contributed to the development of spanned from the days o f Beachey and the the Mentone School, and Bell returned to air power.” stunt pilots to the dawn o f the space age. his hometown for the last time to attend Still later that year, Bell achieved a In July 1960 the defense business o f the dedication. In his welcoming remarks, personal goal when his Society for the Bell Aircraft was sold to Inc., Morrison Rockhill, a longtime friend Rehabilitation o f the Facially Disfigured headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, which o f Bell’s, told assembled schoolchildren, established a Clinic for Reconstructive continues to manufacture Bell . “Lawrence Bell’s favorite saying is, ‘Pretty Plastic Surgery o f the Face in New York. With plants in the Dallas/Fort Worth good is not good enough.’ Lawrence Bell Fie attended that ceremony but his failing area; Mirabel, Quebec, Canada; and Ama­ did the best he could with what he had,” health prevented him from going to Texas rillo, Texas, plus key logistics supply and he added. in 1956 for the dedication o f a high school service centers in Europe, Canada, and named in his honor. On September 18, Singapore, as well as in the United States,

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