{"id":6180,"date":"2020-01-31T16:44:21","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T21:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=6180"},"modified":"2020-01-31T16:44:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T21:44:54","slug":"former-florida-southern-sid-bill-turnage-passes-at-age-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2020\/01\/31\/former-florida-southern-sid-bill-turnage-passes-at-age-72\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Florida Southern SID Bill Turnage Passes at Age 72"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Florida Southern College Department of Athletics is saddened to report the passing of former Sports Information Director Bill Turnage. He passed away on Wednesday, January 29, 2020, at his home in Warrensburg, Missouri. He was 72 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Turnage impacted the lives of thousands of Florida Southern student-athletes during his ten years in Lakeland, from 2002-2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was born February 17, 1947 in Murphysboro, Illinois, the son of William M. and Betty J. Turnage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill graduated from Murphysboro Township High School in 1965 and from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1969 with a Bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill was a member of the Warrensburg Lions Club since 1984 where he served in several roles including president. He received the Melvin Jones Fellow Award in 2018. Bill served his community by volunteering with the Meals on Wheels program for the Warrensburg Senior Center and working with the Food Pantry for the First United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill’s career included work for KOKO Radio (1969-1981), University of Central Missouri (1981-2002), and Florida Southern College (2002-2012).  He was inducted into the University of Central Missouri Athletic Hall of Fame (2008), received the College Sports Information Directors of America Lifetime Achievement Award (2012), and was selected for the Lifetime Achievement Award (2019) by the U.C.M. Baseball Diamond Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill was a member of the Warrensburg First United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill is survived by his sister, Judy (Art) Frazier of Chester, Illinois; his brother, John (Lois) Turnage of Pleasantville, Iowa; his nieces, Amber (Ron) Cushman of Chester, Illinois, Megan (Michael) Van Heiden of Ankeny, Iowa; and Michelle Turnage of Pleasantville, Iowa; his nephew, Mark Turnage of Des Moines, Iowa; and his great-nephews, JR (Ashley) & Hunter Cushman of Chester, Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funeral services will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, February 7 at First United Methodist Church in Warrensburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family will receive friends from 6-8:00 p.m. on Thursday at Sweeney-Phillips & Holdren Funeral Home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorial contributions are suggested to UCM Athletics (checks made payable to UCM Foundation) or the Warrensburg Senior Center and can be left in the care of the funeral home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recollections of Bill Turnage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Wayne Koehler and I both worked with him for 10 years at Florida Southern after Bill joined us from Central Missouri. Those were some good years, probably the best I enjoyed in the profession though I didn’t realize it at the time. It was still a time when people often traveled with their teams and saw each other face-to-face, and the internet, social media, and video streaming hadn’t quite taken firm control of everything we do. In fact, one of the last conversations we had before Bill retired in 2012 was how everything was changing, and we were worried about the effect that would have on everyone. 

I think the biggest reason Bill was successful and thrived as a SID was because he was truly a “people person.” He had the type of demeanor and outlook on life that allowed him to deal with any situation, not just professionally but compassionately too. That’s not an easy thing to balance. We may have met him because of our jobs, but every one of us remembers him for the type of person he was and not the work he did. I hope all of us end up that way, defined more by who we are than by our job titles.

We all have some funny stories too about Bill, so it’s not all serious. Those are the best ones since you’ll always be able to smile or laugh about those memories. Most of them centered on his challenges with technology and I’m making myself laugh now just thinking about some of them, one in particular with StatCrew. Regardless, he was one of the best and I know I wouldn’t have survived the years I did without him.”

Tim Carpenter<\/strong>
Daytona State College Communications Manager
Former Florida Southern Assistant Director, Athletic Communications<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday, February 06, 2020
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweeney-Phillips & Holdren Funeral Home
617 North Maguire Street
Warrensburg, Missouri 64093<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorial Service<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday, February 07, 2020
10:00 AM<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First United Methodist Church of Warrensburg
141 E Gay St
Warrensburg, Missouri 64093<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Florida Southern College Department of Athletics is saddened to report the passing of former Sports Information Director Bill Turnage. He passed away on Wednesday, January 29, 2020, at his… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"19","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fsc-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}