Thomas Bell is passionate about Wyoming's wild places and wildlife. And that passion is the impetus that has led him to spend a lifetime defending the natural wonders of the land he loves…..

Bell became involved with the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and later served as its president. Eventually he founded the Wyoming Outdoor Council to better coordinate the activities of different groups working on resource management issues.

A member of the National Wildlife Federation, Craig Thompson, once said, "Around the Rockies Tom Bell is known as the Grand Old Man of Conservation. He had the insight to see the future of unchallenged development at the very beginning and decided he would head 'em off at the pass, even if he had to do it alone."

Well aware of the power of media, Bell began writing columns for Wyoming Wildlife and the Wyoming State Journal. In 1969 he became editor of Camping News, and within a year renamed the paper High Country News. Bell took a paper that celebrated the great outdoors and turned it into a hard-hitting voice for conservation in the Rocky Mountain West….

University of Wyoming alumnus Todd Guenther said, "For nearly eight decades, this quintessential Renaissance man, Tom Bell, has studied and taught the arts and sciences. He is the embodiment of everything that is exemplary in humanity and is an unsurpassed example of the type of human being that a liberal arts education can produce."