Belle Bear, co-founder of IMPACT 100 Pensacola Bay and champion of numerous nonprofits and causes, is #1 on the 2025 Inweekly Power List.
- As the matriarch of the Bear family, 84-year-old Belle is extraordinarily influential and yes, wealthy, but anyone who truly knows her describes her as unpretentious, sweet and humble. Belle shops at Dollar Tree, invites neighborhood children over to bake cookies and pays medical bills for her seamstress.
“I’ve never known anyone like her in my life; she has no ego,” her best friend Mary Hoxeng said. Hoxeng put Belle’s kindness in perspective, saying that Belle discovered Mary was sick recently and within two hours delivered homemade matzo ball soup to her.
Ask Belle questions about the thousands of lives she has positively impacted through her philanthropy, and she defers credit to her late husband, Lewis Bear Jr. Read more.
BACKGROUND ON THE ISSUE: In Pensacola, one publication is crazy enough to quantify influence—annually ranking the movers, shakers and decision-makers who shape our community. The Inweekly Power List emerged from an impromptu discussion at Atlas Oyster House in 2007, when a simple question sparked an ambitious project: who in Pensacola could make things happen with just one phone call?
The answer that night was clear—Fred Levin. But as the conversation flowed, I scribbled more names on a cocktail napkin: Judge Lacey Collier, Ted Ciano, Jim Reeves, Lewis Bear Jr., Ernie Lee Magaha, Collier Merrill, Quint Studer, Jim Cronley and Mort O’Sullivan. Little did we realize that informal list would transform into one of Pensacola’s most anticipated and controversial features.
When a planned cover story fell through the next day, the cocktail napkin’s top 10 expanded into a list of 50. Published under the title “Who’s the Man?”, the inaugural Power List sparked immediate reaction. The phones lit up with those questioning their absence or ranking. An Escambia-Santa Rosa Bar Association luncheon turned heated over the list’s title and its lack of diversity. Gulf Power CEO Susan Story ranked highest among women at number 16.
The controversy revealed something crucial: people were paying attention. What began as an emergency cover story had struck a nerve, demanding annual revisitation and expansion.
Today’s Power List, now 100 names strong, has evolved beyond its humble origins. While elected officials rarely appear (their influence being inherent to their positions), the list celebrates a broader spectrum of power, from established business leaders to emerging voices driving change through grassroots organization and advocacy.
The selection process has matured from barstool discussions to a rigorous evaluation involving community input, multiple drafts and continuous refinement. Through spreadsheets and deliberation, we weigh additions and deletions, measuring impact against visibility, and traditional influence against transformative potential. It’s an imperfect science, but one that captures a moment-in-time snapshot of who shapes Pensacola’s present and future.
Belle Bear tops the 2025 Power List, making her the sixth woman and the third member of the Bear family to be ranked #1. Her influence may not be as visible and evident as others on this list, but when Belle Bear calls, you answer the phone. And if she asks for help, you — whether you are a weekly newspaper publisher or the governor of Florida — do everything possible to fulfill her request.