T he L exington School Pinp oints 50 th A nniversary E dition 2009

above Mrs. Bell with Mrs. Foster,
a fellow math teacher and
dear friend.
top right Mrs. Bell clowning
around with Mr. Adams, Mr.
Gunn, and perhaps an otter.
bottom right Mrs. Bell and friend
and former student Emily
Deller ’09 graduated
on the same day.
40
Lanna Bell:
The Sum Of 30 YeArS
With a brain that Was alWays buzzing with new ideas, Lanna Bell walked
into The Lexington School to teach math in August, 1979. In her 30 years at the
school, she created new programs, made many lifelong friends, and taught hundreds of students
arithmetic, transitional math, algebra, geometry, and Algebra I and II. For years she spent part
of her day scrambling on the floor with little ones in the math lab playing with math games
such as tangrams and geoboards. In the midst of flying rubber bands and tumbling unifix
cubes, Lanna knew she was reinforcing math facts and principles taught in the classroom. Her
young charges, though, simply knew they were having fun. At the same time, older students
took on more sophisticated math challenges under her leadership as she coached successful
Math Bowl teams, her first year winning the Kentucky State Championship.
Interdisciplinary projects were also Lanna’s forte. Once, history teacher Debbie Wilson was
trying to bring her own summer vacation trip alive for her students. It seemed that only a nanosecond
passed before Lanna’s classes were creating Fort Ticonderoga to scale using giant pretzels.
Librarians wanted to celebrate September 9, a Chinese holiday of flying kites and sending
dreams for the future into the stratosphere. In the midst of a small tsunami of tissue, glue,
string, and straws, Lanna’s classes produced delicate tetrahedron kites. On 9/9/99 students ran
across the playing fields with colorful kites soaring behind them.
Lanna felt that middle school students needed more opportunities to learn about and practice
leadership, so she and school counselor Will Mahoney conspired to create Even Eagles Need a
Push. Former UK basketball star Cameron Mills was usually one of the kick-off speakers for
a day-long workshop where parents and alumni led group activities to inspire best leadership
practices. One year, though, Cameron had a last-minute emergency, and he had to “look to his
bench” for help. That day Coach Tubby Smith, of UK basketball fame himself, showed up at
TLS and took great delight that he was subbing for Cameron.
PINPOINTS 50th Anniversary