King and Queen of Their Courts
DETROIT & FLINT, MICHIGAN
How’s this for a glamorous chapter in the continuing saga of boy meets girl? A nationally prominent basketball star and a Miss USA contestant from the same college fall in love.
Right: That’s the stuff of romance-novel dreams. But it has happened, and AFSCME has played a significant background role.
Charlie Bell, a guard at Michigan State University (MSU), and Kenya Howard, a graduate of the university and reigning Miss Michigan USA 2001, are the offspring of proud mothers who belong to AFSCME Council 25: Belle Bell works at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Vergie Howard at the Herman Kiefer Health Center in Detroit.
In April 2000, Charlie helped lead the Spartans to the NCAA basketball championship as a junior (PE, July/August 2000). He was the second-leading scorer and top assist man on this year’s squad, which received a No. 1 seed in the South Region to defend its title. MSU lost in the Final Four tournament.
Kenya received the Michigan crown last November, after finishing as the first runner-up in the contest a year earlier. In the national competition held in March, she finished in the Top 10.
Kenya graduated from MSU with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business management. She works as an engineer with General Motors.
