Doyla Faye Black Bell

Doyla Faye Black Bell, 82, of Amarillo, passed away on April 29, 2025.

A celebration of Doyla's life will be held on Friday, May 9, 2025, at 10 am in the Schooler Funeral Home's Brentwood Chapel, 4100 S. Georgia.

Doyla Faye Black Bell was born in Groom, Texas, the firstborn child to Kenneth Foster Black and Phyllis Nadine Keahey Black.

She graduated from Groom High School in 1961. Her very first trip on an airplane was to move to Washington, D.C. to go to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the secretarial pool. She also spent 19 years as a Navy wife. She loved traveling the country and spent time stationed with her husband in California, Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee. But her favorite duty station was the three years she spent in Naples, Italy.

Doyla was also active in Al-Anon, and was instrumental in getting the Navy in Charleston to implement the Navy Alcohol Safety Action Program (NASAP), which was directed at identifying early signs of alcohol abuse among Navy personnel.

After moving back to the Panhandle area, Doyla went to work for the Pantex plant and retired from there in 2004. She spent much of her retirement traveling with friends and loving on her grandkids.

After having Covid, Doyla became a resident of Five Points Nursing and Rehabilitation in 2021. She made many friends there and was known for her love of bingo, sassy disposition and for always watching the birds she fed from a large bird feeder. She spent time as the president of the resident’s group and was a favorite of many of the nursing home staff. Doyla’s family would like to thank the staff at Five Points as well as BSA Hospice for the loving care they gave her.

Doyla was preceded in death by her parents and her brother, Kyle Black.

She is survived by her son Robert Allen Bell Jr. of San Antonio; by her daughter Kenja Purkey and her husband Kenny; and sister Connie Fulton all of Amarillo; two brothers, Keith Black and his wife Debbie of Pampa and Kris Black and his wife Gay of Crawford, Oklahoma; six grandchildren, Kristian Bell and wife Kendell, Allen Bell and Nichole Buck Moore, Indigo Cavazos and her husband Joe Davis, Beckett Purkey, and Ashley Osborn; and eight great-grandchildren.