RIP Ted

When my husband and I were dating, he shared a story with me over dinner one evening. He began by telling me he had attended a prestigious boys’ preparatory school in Chattanooga before college.

“McCallie? Have you heard of it?” I shook my head no. He continued, “Well, I was a day student from a middle-class family and rode the bus to school every day, but a lot of rich kids went there and lived in the dormitories. Ted Turner’s son went to school with me. In fact, I punched him one time. I got in a lot of trouble when I got home.”

I interrupted his story. “Hold on. You punched Ted Turner’s son? The Ted Turner? The millionaire? You punched his son?”

He nodded, put a forkful of food in his mouth and added, “He deserved it.”

Through the years, this story has come up a few times—my husband getting aggravated at a classmate named Teddy and punching him, because as a teenager, it’s hard to control one’s restraint. I don’t know anything about that son, but I do know a little something about Ted Turner, and I was genuinely sad when I heard he died last week at 87 from complications of Lewy body dementia. He was a character—one of the most larger-than-life figures that America has ever produced.

Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1938, but when Ted was about nine, his father, Ed Turner, moved the family to Georgia. Ted went to the Georgia Military Academy, where the other boys bullied him and reportedly yelled “Kill the Yankee!” before piling on top of him. In his efforts to blend in and avoid being tormented at every turn, Ted taught himself a pretty convincing Southern accent. In fact, many folks thought he was from Georgia, though he was more of an adopted son of the Peach State.

Even as a child, he loved the outdoors and had a curiosity about wild animals, often bringing one home. One story says that he brought an alligator home and dropped it in the family’s bathtub. Another story notes that he tried to stuff a squirrel like a taxidermist.

He eventually studied Classics and Economics at Brown University, and after his father’s tragic death in 1963 by suicide, Turner took over the family billboard business, but broadcast media had caught his attention. In 1970, he bought a struggling UHF television station in Atlanta and turned it into Channel 17. He made it a 24-hour station at a time when nobody saw the point or even thought that was possible, then used satellite technology to beam it across the entire country as the “SuperStation.” In fact, I grew up in Middle Georgia watching that SuperStation. Among other things, my siblings and I watched Braves baseball and wrestling on that channel.

Then in 1980, standing before a crowd at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, he launched the country’s first 24-hour cable news channel. People said it couldn’t be done. Ted Turner did it anyway and made it work.

Along the way, he bought the losing Atlanta Braves for $10 million and watched his beloved team finally win the World Series in 1995. He was named Time’s Man of the Year in 1991, launched TNT and Turner Classic Movies, founded the United Nations Foundation with a jaw-dropping billion-dollar donation, and created Captain Planet to inspire the next generation of environmentalists.

In 2001, he and U.S. Senator Sam Nunn co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-partisan organization dedicated to reducing reliance on, and preventing the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

He loved the wide open spaces of our country. As one of the largest continued from page

private landowners in the U.S., he dedicated over 2 million acres to conservation, focusing on habitat restoration, protecting endangered species like trout and birds, and reintroducing bison, which brings us to Ted’s Montana Grill.

When my husband and I visit Atlanta for a day, we often dine at Ted’s Montana Grill. Gene usually orders the bison meatloaf, and if I don’t get a bison burger, I get the trout. Ted Turner and two business associates launched the restaurant chain in 2002 to generate attention and demand and to help stop the extinction of the American bison. The number of bison herds has increased (I’ve read that they have doubled), thanks to his raising public awareness.

Turner was also concerned about population growth, climate change, and the protection of natural resources, as I am also. To summarize, he used his fortune to serve causes he cared about and leave his fingerprints on the world.

This week, a former coworker shared that Turner kept a sign on his desk that read, “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.” Whether he was revolutionizing television, saving the bison, or pledging a billion dollars to the United Nations, that’s exactly what Ted Turner did—he led.

I imagine his son, Teddy Turner, probably had a difficult time growing up in his father’s giant shadow. My husband still maintains that the young man deserved that punch at McCallie all those years ago. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. But the father? Ted Turner deserves every honor, every headline, and every bison burger named in his memory. The world will be a little quieter, a little less fun, a little less caring without him in it.