2011 Outstanding Alumni

Kay Bell earned her bachelor's degree in journalism in 1978 from the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech University. She has worked in a diverse career that has included positions as a daily newspaper reporter and editor in her native Texas, almost 20 years working for a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the House Ways and Means Committee, and as a member of the Washington, D.C., government relations offices of two Fortune 500 companies.

In 1999, she helped to start the tax section of the respected personal finance website bankrate.com. She continues as contributing tax editor for the Florida-based online publisher. When she returned home to Texas in 2005, she opened SKB Editorial Services, a boutique editorial content company that provides financially focused articles to a diverse clientele.

As an independent journalist, she has written for consumer finance and general interest publications, including TheStreet.com, CreditCards.com, MSN Money, American Profile and Austin Woman magazine, for which she started the "Worth" personal finance column. On the commercial journalism side, Bell has produced copy for T. Rowe Price, Motley Fool Investor, Brinker Fixed Income Advisor and the Community Bankers Association.

She has appeared on Fox Business, CNN, Marketplace, Bloomberg radio and The Pulse Network. Bell blogs about taxes and personal finance at two sites, her personal blog "Don't Mess With Taxes" and "Taxes Blog" for Bankrate. Her first solo book, "The Truth About Paying Fewer Taxes," was published by Financial Times Press in February 2009. Currently, she is working on a book about finances for young adults.

Bell has been a member of the National Professional Advisory Board to the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech since 2009.