Mayhue A. Bell

Mayhue Arnold Bell, 97, of Raleigh, NC departed from this world on Thursday, December 23, 2021 into the presence of the Lord Almighty. He was a resident of Raleigh (3.7 years) and former resident of Grimesland, NC (12 years), Greenville, SC (28 years), Gaithersburg, MD (14 years), and at numerous other places. He enjoyed life being blessed with good health, family, and many friends who will always remember his honesty, hard work ethics, achiever attitude, wit, common sense, and passion to inspire others to be successful in life after having lived through poverty in his upbringing. Mayhue, the sixth of nine children, was born March 23, 1924 at home in rural Chocowinity at Blounts Creek of Beaufort County in NC, to Redden Churchill Bell and Martha (Bessie) Elizabeth Arnold. His parents Redden and Bessie were deceased in 1961 and 1978 respectively. His late paternal and maternal grandparents were Joseph Elias Bell and Nancy McGowan of Blounts Creek, NC and James Henry Arnold and Betty Smith of Grimesland, NC.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Janet Evelyn Teague, infant son Jan, and daughter Teresa; six brothers, Roger Roosevelt, Jasper, infant Cleo James, Jesse Dalton, Redden Churchill, Jr., and Devon Gray; two sisters Lillian Mae Edwards and Ruth Elizabeth Southard.

Starting at the age of six, living in poverty in 1930, he assisted his father in manually clearing 20-acre land of tree stumps to raise tobacco at his home in Blounts Creek to provide family income. Living on a farm and getting a great education from his teachers in a one-room schoolhouse grades 1-8, he developed love for mathematics and science. He became fascinated by the beauties of nature and wonders of the universe that obey a small set of strict laws of which he found them to be utterly remarkable. In 1938, he attended Aurora High School in Aurora, NC and after graduation in 1941, he had a desire to go to Louisburg College in Louisburg, NC to major in accounting but had no money. After he worked on the tobacco farm for a year with no earnings to go to college due to a severe drought, he enlisted in 1942 and served in the U.S. Navy Armed Guard on ships operated by the Merchant Marines during World War II (WWII) for six years with determination to go to college with his saved earnings before the GI bill became available later at the time of his discharge.

He went to boot camp at the Norfolk Naval Base Station in Norfolk, VA. Although his initial request to become an accountant in the military was denied due to his exceptional hearing and that the U.S. Navy had a strong need for technicians on war ships, he became a Electronic Technician. He received Naval training at Keystone Schools in Radio at Bedford Springs, PA, in Communications at Noroton Heights, CN, in Radio Material (Electronics) at Dearborn, MI, and in Advanced Radio Material (Advanced Electronics) at Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA. He was a radioman, radar and sonar repairman, and instructed electronic courses to the U.S. Navy personnel. He served mostly in the Atlantic theater and was in training for invasion of Japan as part of the Pacific theater. He was stationed at Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn, NY, Harbor Entrance Control at San Pedro, CA, Naval Operating Base at Subic Bay, Philippines, and Underway Training Unit in San Diego, CA. He served on USS Samuel Gorton (Liberty Ship), USS Burton Gwinnett (Alamosa Class Cargo Ship), USS Piedmont (AD17: Dixie Class Destroyer Tender Ship), and USS LST 1078 (Tank Landing Ship). He received commendations from his superiors for his exemplary repair work on damaged radar and sonar systems on war ships, thereby saving lives. For his military service, he was awarded the Navy Good Conduct Medal, European-African Campaign Medal, American Area Campaign Medal, and WWII Victory Medal.

After honorable discharge in 1948 from the U.S. Navy, he had opportunities to attend prestigious universities such as M.I.T, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Purdue. Because he wanted to be a practical rather than a theoretical electronics engineer, he chose Purdue University (School of Electrical Engineering) at West Lafayette, IN in 1949. Later that year, he transferred to NC State College (School of Electrical Engineering and then School of Nuclear Engineering) at Raleigh, NC, now known as NC State University. Majoring in Electrical Engineering, he had to take physics courses. While making A’s in his physics courses, he was asked by his Physics professor to consider changing his major to Nuclear Engineering. His reaction was “what’s that?” because there was no such thing in the industry. In 1950, he was one of the students of atomic age pioneer Dr. Raymond L. Murray who later became Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering at NC State University, to help draft the first textbook for the nuclear engineering curriculum at NC State College. He met Janet, who was a head registered nurse at Meredith College at the time, on the dance floor at a local YWCA. After numerous date outings, he proposed and married her in 1951. In 1952, he received his Bachelor of Nuclear Engineering degree and graduated with honors in the world’s first nuclear engineering curriculum at NC State College.

In 1952, he was employed with E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (aka “DuPont”), a nuclear reactor builder and operator under contract with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He was given the title of a Physicist because there were no Nuclear Engineers in the industry. He first worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in TN while the federal owned nuclear reactor (R-Reactor) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in SC was being built, and then later as a shift supervisor to help his team get the R-Reactor to go online in 1953. The R-Reactor became the SRS’s first production reactor when it was “taken to critical” meaning that full operation resulted in a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The R-Reactor served as a prototype for the other SRS reactors (P, L, K, and C). The federal owned nuclear reactors were used to produce tritium and plutonium for national defense during the Cold War. After being promoted to Senior Supervisor and working at the SRS for several years, he worked for AEC in 1957 and became one of the first three to be hired to inspect licensed nuclear reactor facilities at universities as well as test and prototype power reactors owned by industry. Because there were no nuclear power plants being built by power companies at the time, he was responsible for a ten-state area in the midwest working out of the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. He had inspected the first nuclear power reactor owned and operated by the private industry (Draedon Nuclear Power Plant), and recommended it to be licensed to start operation. The Draedon plant was a prototype power reactor about one-forth of today's full scale nuclear power plants and was shut down. The Inspection Division in which he worked and the Licensing Division became the core of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as established by U.S. Congress.


In 1960, he went to work for Carolinas Virginia Nuclear Power Associates (CVNPA) in Charlotte, NC which was formed by four power companies: Carolina Power and Light Company, Duke Power (now known as Duke Energy Progress), South Carolina Electric and Gas Company, and Virginia Power and Electric Company. In 1961, he was promoted to general manager of CVNPA working from Columbia, SC. He helped put into operation the first commercial nuclear power plant in the Southeastern USA and the first of its kind using pressurized heavy water. The reactor was sited at Parr Shoals on Broad River in Parr, SC and it was the also the first in the world to include three types of power plants: nuclear, coal, and hydro, all on one site. Ironically, the original plan was to have the reactor built in Blounts Creek, NC, one-half mile away from where he grew up, but the water was found to be salty making the site unsuitable. 


In 1964, he took a job with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) at their Headquarters in Washington, DC working from Germantown, MD where he was promoted to senior executive position as Chief, Reactor Safety Branch. In this position under congressional mandate, he was responsible for ensuring that all federal owned facilities (110 nuclear reactors at that time) have safety built in and that they were operated comparable to that required of industry. This involved preparing regulations for issuance by AEC and performing periodic oversight to ensure the regulations were being carried out. His job was later expanded to include the first preparation and oversight of emergency plans (onsite actions and offsite plans to protect public) covering all AEC operations throughout USA. 


In the early 1970's, because of his expertise in emergency planning, he was selected to represent USA on a panel of experts to develop the first worldwide emergency guidelines for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under the United Nations, headquartered in Austria, Vienna. His draft on the emergency guidelines was approved by the panel and he later became the editor of the document entitled "Planning For The Handling of Radiation Accidents" which was formerly issued by the United Nations. He traveled internationally to promote the emergency guidelines for the international nuclear power plants and was speaker at United Nations conferences in New York. Because of his contributions, the United Nations audience fondly named him as “Dr Bell”. In 1975 after the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, the AEC was split into two agencies, Energy Research and Development (ERDA) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In 1977 when ERDA merged with the Federal Energy Administration to form the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), he became a chief presidential appointee after his executive management position at AEC was abolished by President Jimmy Carter. Given the opportunity, he made the decision to retire early at age 53 to spend more time with his family. Later in the early 1990’s upon request from DOE/NRC, he worked as a consultant for the Tiger Team to make management oversight assessments and to ensure that operational safety procedures and emergency guidelines of all federal owned and commercial nuclear power plants are followed to the approved regulations.

During his years in Gaithersburg, MD, he served as founding church member and deacon at Gaithersburg Presbyterian Church. Throughout his life at various churches of different denominations, he enjoyed going to Sunday school classes to learn the Scriptures and to challenge long-held or evolving traditions that were not biblically correct based on his experiences, critical thinking skills, and from reading Scriptures cover to cover on his own. He had a strong desire for truths to be told so that people’s lives could be made better. He loved to inspire people to succeed in life and challenged them to do their best. He excelled in many areas including carpentry, yard work, residential home building and renovations, but his favorite hobbies were traveling, sightseeing, watching sports, bowling, and more laborious work to keep his family busy!

Mayhue is survived by his son Jon A. Bell of Raleigh, NC; son Brad E. Bell, his spouse Karrie of Carmel, IN; grandson Isaac Bell of Birmingham, AL; and granddaughter Audrey Bell of Carmel, IN. Additional survivors are Ruby Niles Bell of Chesapeake, VA, spouse of deceased brother Jasper Bell; Sybil Peele Griffith of Jamestown, NC, former spouse of deceased brother Devon Bell, Myrnith Merrick (Bell) Kotsch of Mountain Home, AR, former spouse of deceased brother Redden C. Bell Jr.; cousins and their families; and numerous nieces and nephews and their families.

The family would like to thank the WakeMed North hospital staff for their care and support, Suzanne Dickerman of Raleigh, NC for more than three years of care and devotion to Mayhue and our family, and Suzanne’s employees for their kindness and assistance.

The family will receive friends from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm on Saturday, January 8th at Mitchell Funeral Home at Raleigh Memorial Park, 7209 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC. The funeral service will be held in the Chapel of Mitchell Funeral Home immediately afterwards with no interment. For those unable to attend, live streaming at the funeral home’s website will begin at 1:55 pm.

Flowers are welcome, or donations in Mayhue’s name may be made to a charitable organization for heart and lung disease research and treatment of your choice.

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