Bell, Twyman to speak at Commencement Weekend events

Commencement Weekend speakers will include Head of School Brent Bell at Baccalaureate and attorney Chris Twyman, president of the State Bar of  Georgia, at Commencement. Both have children in the Class of 2026. 

Selected to speak by the senior class, Bell was named Darlington’s 11th head of school in 2014. With more than  two decades of experience in education, he holds a B.A. in History from the University of Richmond and an M.S. in Education from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has worked closely with the Class of 2026 as the boys' middle school basketball coach, and during the inaugural year of the Darlington Leadership Institute when they were in eighth grade. He also  meets annually with the members of each senior class, and enjoys sharing their wisdom with the Board of Trustees and Upper School students and faculty.  Prior to his work at Darlington, Bell was head of Upper School at Randolph School in Huntsville, Ala. He also served previously as assistant headmaster and dean of academic affairs at Woodberry Forest School in Woodberry Forest, Va., where he held the E. Craig Wall Family Mastership. He and his wife, Andrea, have three children, Charlie, Jack (’24) and Brent (’26). 

Twyman is the managing partner with the law firm of Cox Byington Twyman LLP, in Rome, practicing in the areas of commercial and general civil litigation, family law, criminal defense, and education law. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University, where he majored in government and minored in history, and obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Georgia School of Law. While in law school, he served as executive chair on the University of Georgia Moot Court Board and argued at the American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition in Boston, Mass. He was also named to the Order of the Barristers and is a Master in the Clark-Carley Inn of Court with the University of Georgia School of Law.

 Admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1999, Twyman practices in all Georgia trial courts; the Georgia Court of Appeals; and the Supreme Court of Georgia, as well as federal courts, including the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. He represents clients throughout the State of Georgia and in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In 2022, he was elected as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, one of the premier legal associations in the United States. Since 2021, he has been recognized as a Georgia Super Lawyer by Atlanta Magazine. Twyman currently serves as the 63rd President of the State Bar of Georgia. He and his wife, Tashia, are the parents of Christa (' 23) and Myles (’26).  

Baccalaureate will take place Friday, May 15, at 7 p.m. in Morris Chapel. Commencement will be held Saturday, May 16, at 9:30 a.m. on the Chapel Lawn. In the event of rain, it will be held at 10:30 a.m. in the Huffman Athletic Center. Darlington will stream both events on YouTube.