Remembering Raymond Turner

mrandolphadvance@gmail.com

Editor’s Note: In March 2024, late Mayor Pro-Tem John Raymond Turner sat down for an interview with The Advance to reflect on his life and time in public service. Turner recently passed away on April 1, 2025; thus, The Advance is republishing this chat to honor his memory.

Vidalia City Councilman John Raymond Turner represented the citizens of Ward 3 for over 40 years, and became a staple of the city’s government. Throughout 11 terms, Turner found the keys to success in representing the people, and is now reflecting on his journey while in what he had planned to be his final term.

“I said that last term would be my last term, but I was talking into rerunning again,” he explained during the March 2024 interview. “As far as I know, this will be my last term. I want to give someone else the opportunity, especially someone younger with new ideas. We need some younger minds with fresh ideas.”

Turner, was serving as the Council’s Mayor Pro-Tem at the time of his death. He was a native of Vidalia, as he first moved here when he was 6 months old after his beginning his first months in Metter.

After a few months of employment at the Theatre, Turner got a job at an insurance firm in Savannah. While there, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, in which he served two years.

During his time in the Army, Turner was deployed to Frankfurt, Germany, where he worked as a quartermaster for a year and a half. “We were responsible for household furniture,” he clarified during the interview. “So, when new people would come in to live in the government housing in the city, we would go survey the house and furniture, and find out exactly what we needed. Then, we would go to Germans who worked with us and have them build those pieces of furniture – the Germans did all of the work; we just facilitated it.

Yet, although he was not in man-to-man combat, Turner learned several lessons during his time in the Army, which helped him throughout the remainder of his life and in his career as a city councilman. “By going into the Army, I became a better man – it made a better man out of me,” he emphasized during the chat. “It helped me to discipline myself. You work towards things, but sometimes, you hit a brick wall; [the Army taught me] to just step back [when that happens], concentrate on the situation, and move forward again.”

After his deployment, Turner returned to Vidalia, where he was encouraged by Flossie Hayes to run for a position on the Vidalia City Council in 1979. He did not win the election because at the time all city officials were voted on citywide; during the next four years, Vidalia made districts, and he ran for his district without any opposition.

It took his first term for Turner to learn the ropes of government and settle into the position, but he said every term after that became easier. “It takes a while to get used to it – most people think that government is a fast-moving thing, but it’s not. It’s slow-moving – you have a lot of processes and things you have to go through to get anything done,” Turner remarked about the experience. “So, it’s a learning experience – every citizen in Vidalia should become a city council member and they’ll understand you can’t just snap your fingers and have things happen. It doesn’t work that way.”

Since those first learning experiences as a city councilman, Turner has seen a lot of change within the city. “Vidalia is completely different than it was when I started [on the Council] in 1983,” he commented. “[For example,] We had an old overpass around Adams Street and Montgomery Street – it used to be a really high hill you had to go over, but now it’s leveled off.”

In those years, several of the changes and decisions made have become memorable for Turner, such as the improvements of the Vidalia Municipal Annex and Vidalia Police Department, construction of the Vidalia Community Center, and creation of the one-way road along GA Hwy 280.

“The community center is one memory I’m proud of; we didn’t have a place for people to come together or for businesses and companies who came here to have a meeting spot. So, it was a great thing to get,” he shared. “Making the one way road in Vidalia was also a big deal.”

These improvements, and more, brought change to the city; yet, with change often comes opinions, which are best handled through a focus on service, according to Turner. “Your main focus has to be: ‘What is best for everybody?’ Once your focus is doing what is best for everyone and treating everyone the same, you don’t have any problem,” he explained.

The importance of focusing on doing the best for everyone was one of many lessons that Turner has learned throughout his tenure on the council. “One thing is that it gave me a different perspective of what city government is and who the citizens of Vidalia are and what they want,” he said. “I appreciate that because the more input that you get from citizens, the better your job is. People don’t realize that they have a lot of support and strength in government, but they don’t exercise their right. They don’t use their voices.”

He added, “Also, it is important to treat everybody the same and try to do what is right.”

These lessons, along with knowledge of how city government works, has transformed Turner’s perspective of the city and his hopes for the city’s future. “I view Vidalia as a hub for business because other counties around us have people to come to Vidalia for business,” he remarked. “I think the more that we can improve, the more it will help people to come here more. It will help the city and the citizens because tax money coming in to help will keep them from having to go up on property taxes.”

During the interview, he continued to share his hopes for the area, as he said, ”I’d like to see the golf course coming back; we are finally going to have a place locally that people can go to play golf and high school students can practice. One day, I would like to see the airport continue to grow. We have a really busy airport, and at one time, had a shuttle that ran from Vidalia to Savannah for the airports. Hopefully, one day, we can get that going again, and people will be able to fly from here to Atlanta or here to Savannah – that would be very good.”

Ultimately, it was these projects and hopes that kept Turner coming back to serve on the council. “It gets in your blood – there’s always something that just makes you want to keep going,” he stated during the interview. “Right now, the reason why I actually remained for another term is we have a lot of projects that are coming up. We need somebody there that already knows the ins and outs of what’s going on, and that’s what I’m there for.”

Yet, during the interview, Turner said he was prepared to hang up his hat after the current term, as he hoped that the citizens know how devoted he was to his duty. “I would hope that people see me as having dedicated myself to the betterment of Vidalia, to making sure that Vidalia is equal to any other city our size, and that we’ve done what we needed to do for the citizens and to improving the city,” he emphasized at the end of the chat.

Turner’s passing on April 1 left an immeasurable void within Vidalia, but his legacy of leadership, humility, and service will be remembered for years to come.

FOUR MAYORS—During Turner’s 11 terms on the Vidalia City Council, he had worked with 4 different mayors, all of whom he said he respected. W. Norwood Rhodes was the mayor when Turner was elected in 1982.

MAYOR PRO-TEM – Turner was serving as the city’s Mayor Pro-Tem at the time of his death.

VIDALIA NATIVE – Turner lived in Vidalia for almost the entirety of his life, as his family moved here when he was only 6 months old.

SERVING THE PUBLIC – Turner said that the best way to approach serving the public is to work with the good of all citizens in mind.

ARMY VETERAN – Turner said his experience in the Army helped to make him a better man, and taught him lessons which benefitted him in both life and politics.