Bobby Turner, surprised with the Kiwanian of the Year award during the Kiwanis Club of Statesboro’s 66th Anniversary Dinner on Thursday evening, thanked other club members for what they’ve taught him about service and said he wants to continue passing it on.
“What do you say to this?” he began. “I mean, I can’t count all of you, but there’s a lot of former Kiwanians of the Year out there, and you guys, you showed me what to do and in some cases what not to do, and I hope I can continue to learn from all of you, and I hope that I can help to teach the next generation of Kiwanians so we can continue helping our community.”
For Turner, volunteering with the Kiwanis Club, working at the fair every October and helping prepare for the rodeo in April is, as past Kiwanian of the Year Trish Tootle said in presenting the award, “a family affair.” His wife, Lisa Turner, was 2020 Statesboro Kiwanian of the Year, and their daughter, Kayla Loy, also volunteers with the club.
Now, as the award is presented early the next year but named for the past year, Bobby Turner is 2025 Kiwanian of the Year.
He was born in Alma but then did much of his growing up in Bulloch County. Turner then served 29 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a staff sergeant in 2014 and returning to make his home here. Lisa Turner, who works in the livestock barn helping to coordinate shows during the fair, has been a Statesboro Kiwanis member for 10 years.
She and Bobby will have been married 10 years this October. After helping Lisa with her club work before he was a member, he joined the club eight years ago
‘Volun-told’
“Upon retiring he moved back to our area and settled down,” said Tootle. “He not only settled in God’s country, but he found a wife and a daughter shortly afterwards. He began to volunteer, or perhaps he was ‘volun-told’ that he would be helping with the fair and the rodeo.”
But Turner “not only joined Kiwanis but he became a true Kiwanian, and if you are working here during the fair on these grounds, you will see the passion in his eyes, and it is truly a family affair,” Tootle continued.
Currently active on the fair committee, Turner has been both fair and rodeo chair, “and currently holds the record for both,” according to Tootle. She also credited him, and fellow Kiwanian J.D. Dunn, who is in charge of the grounds with assistance from Turner, of teaching her during her own year as fair chair about the complexity of the Kiwanis Ogeechee Fairgrounds infrastructure.
“There are 500 water lines out there, and there are 500 electrical lines out there. There are tombstones out there with dead bodies, and this man, along with J.D. Dunn, they know where they all are. …,” Tootle said, eliciting some laughter from the crowd while listing things Turner taught her.
“But the main thing he taught me is you don’t put the live entertainment next to the livestock barn, because dancing pigs aren’t always a good thing,” she said.
Now in his third year on the club’s board of directors, Turner serves with patience, a smile and “love for his family and love for this community,” said the presenter. Turner gave Tootle a hug on his way to the front of the room to accept the award.
Anniversary event
Chartered in 1960, the Kiwanis Club of Statesboro celebrates its anniversary with a dinner and awards program around this time each year. The club currently has 153 members, reports its president, Kasey Hagan.
About two-thirds that many people attended Thursday evening’s event in the Fairgrounds Community Building, where a longtime member, retired judge Gary Mikell, presented a slide show based in selections from the 53 fair books – annual magazines highlighting aspects of the fair and carrying sponsors’ ads – which were published from 1963 to 2016.
Other awards were presented, ranging from those for one to 43 years of perfect attendance to six Outstanding Kiwanian medals and eight Legion of Honor presentations. Recipients will be named in an expanded version of this story.