Alann Sampson: A Love Affair With Life Enhances Family Legacy

Photo of Alann Sampson

“I have a love affair with life,” Alann Sampson said with a contagious smile. “I love people and I love Fort Worth.”

It is more than just words — it’s part of a legacy that started with her parents, Alann P. and Charles F. Bedford.

An endowed Field of Interest Fund at the North Texas Community Foundation – which bears her parents’ name and benefits human services and the arts – continues to solidify an already impressive legacy for this Fort Worth family.

Alann said her parents taught her to be “giving of oneself and not being selfish with which one has.”

She honors them by embracing her “love affair with life.”

Her philanthropic involvement ranges from the Cliburn Foundation to being a founding member of Streams and Valleys, which coordinates the beautification and recreational development of the Trinity River in greater Tarrant County. She has been involved at the city’s first methadone treatment center, has chaired Jewel Charity Ball for Cook Children’s Hospital, and she helped start Fort Worth Country Day School.

When asked to define a legacy, Alann said: “It is honoring achievement, accomplishments, and the heart and soul of what has gone before.”

She shared a story of her mother driving her to Cook Children’s Hospital when she was 12 years old to volunteer as a Candy Striper. She also told a story about volunteering in 1962 at the very first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

“We wore white gloves and passed out programs,” she said.

Now, the Cliburn Foundation is Alann Sampson’s passion and part of her family’s growing legacy.

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