Turner was born June 18th, 1931, in Linden, Alabama, to parents Elijah Nay Hasty and Laura Inez Turner Hasty. Turner was the second of two children for the couple, having a daughter, Betty Jo, three years earlier. The Hasty family was poor and each member spent much of their days working in Elijah’s hardware store. Elijah passed away in November 1944, forcing 13 year old Turner to become the man of the family and take much of the burden of running the store. This instilled in Turner a solid work ethic which he maintained his entire life. Turner was able to attend the University of Alabama on an ROTC scholarship and received a bachelors degree in Physics in 1953.
After college, he was commissioned into the US Army as a Second Lieutenant. First order of business was a trip to the far off country of Korea. When Turner arrived, the war had just ended and his regiment was assigned the duty of cleaning un-detonated ordinance from the battlefield. He would call it being a “glorified garbage man”, but dangerous work none the less.
When his time in Korea was complete, Turner returned to the University of Alabama and used the GI Bill to obtain a Ph.D. in Physics. With this degree, he moved to Texas to work for a new innovative company called Texas Instruments. TI was on the verge of creating the integrated circuit and changing the world forever. Turner spent 30 years at TI working as an engineer, director of the Central Research Lab and lead engineer for TI’s ASIC department. After retiring from TI, Turner took the position of Chief Operating Officer at a consortium known as SEMATECH. SEMATECH was a public/private effort to improve US based semi-conductor manufacturing. Turner worked with industry leaders to ensure “best practices” and help increase chip yields. This made it less expensive to produce the evermore complicated chips used to drive modern electronics. After his tenure at SEMATECH, he worked several years as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, teaching science to students in the graduate business school.
It was not all work when Turner arrived in the “Big D” in 1958. Through mutual friends, he met the love of his life, Joanna Mae Reherman, and they were married after a brief courtship. Joanna came to Dallas from her family’s farm just south of tiny Kingfisher, Oklahoma, with a degree in home economics from Oklahoma State University and a job as a dietician at the new Dallas VA hospital. Their first son, Paul, arrived a few years after their wedding and then a year later came second son, Wayne. Even with Turner’s busy schedule, he always found time for the kids through the YMCA program of Indian Guides and coaching youth sports.
Once fully retired, Turner and Joanna traveled the world reaching such exotic spots as Russia and China. They visited most all of central Europe as well as South America, Australia and New Zealand. Another retirement passion was gardening. Turner spent hours working the garden and his beloved roses. Turner was very active in the Dallas Rose Society and was its president for a number of years. Turner’s greatest retirement passion was spending time with his grandkids. He enjoyed taking them to CVS for candy or the Arboretum to run around and have fun. Turner shared his love for gardening with the girls and went so far as to create a hybrid rose in each granddaughter’s honor.
On Sunday morning December 2nd, 2018, Turner passed in his sleep. He was surrounded with friends and family. He leaves behind Joanna, wife of nearly 60 years, sons Paul and Wayne, daughter-in-law Carol and grandchildren Anna, Mary Beth and Shannon. He is preceded in death by his parents Elijah and Laura and his big sister, Betty Jo.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Alzheimer's Foundation of America.
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